Revenant
by RLD Flame-point Callie-co
Summary: Resilience sequel: Edward makes a dangerous new friend, while Bella, Peter, Claire & Elle continue their fight against Arthur and make dangerous new enemies. Warnings: character death, violence, angstiness. Darkish.
1. Dead Man Walking

**I know you're all anxious to find out what happens so I won't trouble you with my A/Ns now. I won't even make you read a disclaimer because if you don't know by now that Twilight & Heroes don't belong to me there's just no getting through to ya. **

**WARNING: this chapter contains violence and major goriness. Do NOT read right before or after eating!**

Revenant: a person who returns, especially one who returns after death; ghost

Chapter 1: Dead Man Walking

_Flashback - day after the Pinehearst explosion_

The man kept back, watching the city morgue from across the street. It was closing time, yet the coroner hadn't left. The man tapped his foot impatiently. _Come on, hurry the hell up already! Those dead people'll still be there tomorrow. _A smirk curled the corners of his mouth. _At least most of them will. _

At long last the coroner emerged, followed by an overweight NYPD detective. The man's eyes narrowed. _What the hell? The FBI just talked to him, so what's this fatso doing here?_ A closer examination told him that this wasn't just any cop with a stereotypical fondness for doughnuts - this was a _telepathic_ fatso. Coincidence? Or something more? The man filed this away in his memory and then put it out of mind; he was on a mission, and nothing would distract him from completing it.

He broke into the morgue once he was positive it was deserted, crept past the administrative offices, crematorium, and autopsy rooms to the cold storage room where the bodies were kept, and pulled open drawers until he found the one he was looking for. Then he placed his palm on the corpse's chest, sending a jolt of his own power through it.

The man's power gave Arthur Petrelli the boost he needed to break Bella's block on his powers; after that his regeneration and revival were instantaneous. He sat up, pleased when he saw the man. "Good to see phase one of our contingency plan went off with no complications."

The man frowned. "There was a telepath here earlier. Don't know if his being here had anything to do with you or Pinehearst, but if it did that could be a complication."

"At the moment a single telepath is the least of our worries. What happened to Pinehearst?"

"Blown up and burned to the ground. Dr. Suresh wasn't inside at the time of the explosion, was he?"

"No, it just so happens that the good doctor escaped night before last, taking one of our test subjects with him." Arthur scowled; such a thing happening right under his nose really rankled. "But never mind him now."

"Never mind him? How are we supposed to make the formula work without him? Without him our whole project's kaput!"

"Relax, Mitch - we don't need Dr. Suresh anymore. Last night I found out what's been missing from the formula."

General Mitchell Grande finally cracked one of his rare genuine smiles. "What is it?"

"Not what, Mitch - _who_. You just focus on phase two and leave the rest to me."

###

Arthur decided to wait until the new labs were set up before going after the girls again; it did no good to have the catalyst with no formula to use it on. Unfortunately, setting up labs took time. Weeks dragged past - first one, then two, then three, then an entire month. And then another few weeks. Even more frustrating, Arthur had to stay holed up in the general's base while the facilities got finished. It wouldn't do for a supposedly dead man to be walking around where anyone could see him.

Finally his phone beeped, signaling the delivery of the text message he'd been waiting to receive: _Building 26 set up & fully operational. Get the catalyst. _Arthur left right away.

Locating his first target was all too easy - there was only one Swan family in Forks, and their address was listed in the Yellow Pages, where anyone could find it. This pleased Arthur, as it obviously meant the Swan girl thought he was dead, giving him the element of surprise. Or it could have meant she _didn't_ think he was dead and was simply too stupid to hide from him, but he doubted that was the case. A stupid girl couldn't have defeated him, even temporarily.

Peter and Claire's address was not listed in the phone book; in fact there was no indication that they lived in Forks at all. Well, Arthur would have been disappointed if Peter'd made finding them _too_ easy, however irrationally. Mitch had said several times that since Peter wasn't on their side they should wish for him to be a bit less bright than he was. Arthur could see his point, but still... _Maybe there's some hope for that boy yet. He blew up my company even though I never would've guessed he had the stomach for that kind of destruction, and he kept himself and Claire hidden from me for a long time. He's not as weak as I used to think. _Was it strange to be proud of his son's defiance when it had caused a huge setback in his plans? Perhaps, and yet Arthur was.

Nathan had always been his favorite - the one most like him - but Nathan's mind had been far too easy to control; he hadn't put up the fight Angela used to, the resistance that made Arthur love her a tiny bit more. And then he'd failed to kill Bella Swan. She'd been right there, he'd had the gun, and somehow she'd walked away unharmed. What a letdown. Maybe that was why Arthur hadn't brought Nathan in on the Building 26 operation...

He cleared away these thoughts with a shake of his head and telekinetically unlocked the house's front door.

Police Chief Charlie Swan was stretched out on the sofa, enjoying a football game and a cold beer. Upon hearing the door swing open, he jumped up to meet the intruder - who turned out to be an unarmed man of around his own age, dressed in an expensive business suit. Not your average burglar. "What the-?"

Arthur sent out a telepathic probe, overwhelming Charlie's virtually nonexistent resistance easily. _Is your daughter at home?_

Charlie blinked dazedly. "Yeah, she got home about twenty, thirty minutes ago. She's upstairs."

_Call her down - _without _mentioning me. _

"Okay, sure. Bells," Charlie hollered, "can you come down here?"

"Be there in a sec!" she shouted back. She ran down the stairs and headed straight for the kitchen, not even glancing into the living room. Arthur followed her, Charlie trailing aimlessly after him, and found her at the stove, peering into a simmering pot of pasta. Determining that her dinner was in no danger of burning she turned away, asking why she'd been called...and froze when she saw Arthur. "You?" she whispered. "You can't be here - you're dead!"

"Hello again, Miss Swan," Arthur politely greeted her. He might be going to kill her, but there was no reason to be rude about it. "I can understand your mistake - you burned down my company headquarters with me inside, and I wasn't able to heal for hours afterward. I'm intrigued as to how you interfered with my powers for so long after you'd left; it's nice to know I'll get something useful from you besides the catalyst." He stepped forward, but she ducked under his outstretched arm...

...And ran smack into her father. "Dad c'mon, we've gotta get out of here!" She shielded his mind, freeing him from Arthur's telepathic control.

Charlie instantly came back to himself and grabbed his loaded gun off its hook. "All right buddy, I don't know what you think you're doing, but you better clear out now or I _will_ put a slug in your kneecaps."

Arthur sighed. He'd come here with one simple objective: get the girl, extract Claire's location from her mind, get Claire, get out. This schmuck of a sheriff was just an unnecessary annoyance. With a well-aimed burst of telekinetic energy, Arthur sliced neatly through Charlie Swan's thick neck.

His severed head sailed through the air, bouncing off Bella's chest; she screamed and lurched back, slipping in the rapidly spreading puddle of blood and falling hard. "Charlie! No... _NO!_"

"I _am_ sorry about that - I didn't come here intending to kill him. I wouldn't have if you hadn't made such a fuss; this is really your fault, you know."

Even with tears glazing her eyes and more streaming down her cheeks, Bella managed an adequately hateful glare. "My fault? _You murdered my father you heartless evil bastard!_"

Ye gods, her screams were irritating. Arthur had needed a little mind control from time to time with Angela; Peter would need a muzzle for this one. _High time to finish her,_ he decided. He moved forward again but before he could get his hands on her, her leg shot out, hooking around his ankle and yanking him off-balance.

Bella then scrambled over to the cabinets, used one of them to pull herself to her feet, and frantically searched the countertop for anything that had even the remotest possibility for use as a weapon. Her fingers skated over her ring of keys; she was about to discard them in favor of Charlie's pocketknife when Arthur got to his feet, grabbed her shoulder, and threw her down again. Her head banged against the linoleum floor, stunning her.

Arthur crouched on one knee beside the girl's prone form, thinking that it really was a shame she had to die. He might have just taken what he needed from her and let her live, if only to give himself leverage for controlling Peter, but she fought too much; she'd be nothing but trouble if he left her alive. "You made this a lot harder than it had to be, Miss Swan." His fingers locked around her throat, simultaneously strangling her and giving him the contact he needed to take her power.

_BPOV_

It was all too much to take in. Arthur Petrelli alive and well and _in my house_, Arthur attacking us, Charlie's head coming off and hitting me, and the wet _smack _as it bounced off my shirt, and _oh God there was so much blood and Charlie was dead!_ My head was already spinning before Arthur sent me crashing to the floor; when he did, multicolored lights burst in front of my eyes, or maybe inside my skull - it certainly felt like fireworks were going off in there. Maybe I even blacked out for a moment.

Then Arthur grabbed my throat and I felt something like quicksand sucking at my brain, a sensation I'd experienced only once before but never forgotten. This was what it had felt like when Arthur had tried to take my ability the night we blew up Pinehearst. He couldn't punch through my shield to do it, but he was so powerful that his trying was like having a battering ram used on my head - I didn't doubt he would eventually wear down my defenses. And when he did, part of me would be gone forever...

This knowledge combined with the panic brought on by him choking me jolted me back to consciousness. When I fell I'd somehow managed to hang on to my keys, and now I didn't stop to think - I just reached up, stabbing at him with the jagged-toothed end wherever I could. As luck would have it, I got him in the eye. I felt a slight resistance and then, with a small _pop!_ the key tore through Arthur's cornea.

He jerked back, howling in pain, but I somehow held on, driving my makeshift weapon in deeper and deeper until I felt it scrape bone. I tried to pull it out then, but it was stuck. "C'mon, c'mon!" I gave one last hard tug, and the key popped free with a wet slurping sound. So did Arthur's eyeball. It splatted on the floor and rolled away, coming to a stop beside Charlie's head. The gruesome sight nearly made me pass out - which I welcomed; unconsciousness would be a relief - but my mind cruelly refused to shut down, denying me an escape. "Oh Dad..."

Arthur was right; this was all my fault. He'd come here for _me_ and Charlie had been in the wrong place at the wrong time - I was a jinx. "Dad I'm so sorry!"

My sobs caught in my throat when I heard movement behind me. _No... It _can't_ be..._ Except that it was. Arthur Petrelli was stirring, a new eye already forming in his gouged, bloody socket. A wordless shriek of denial and horror ripped from my throat. This wasn't a man, it was a monster worse than my worst nightmare, and there was no fighting him. What could I do when he just kept coming back? I tried blocking him - though I'd done that last time and it hadn't worked more than a few hours, so there was no reason it should work now - but terror, shock, grief, and rage had thrown my mind into such a chaotic frenzy that I couldn't focus my power.

Instead it burst out of me with such force I half-expected my heart to explode, shattering windows and blasting pots, pans, a jar of sauce I'd intended for the pasta, and Arthur away from me. This put him between me and the door, so I ran the other way and hurled myself out the kitchen window. I landed awkwardly on my front, the impact knocking all the air from my lungs. Glass shards littered the ground, and several of them cut my stomach, knees, arms, and hands; one even grazed my forehead.

I forced myself to get up, to keep moving; a piece of glass had gotten embedded in my right knee and I couldn't run anymore, but I could still limp. I reached my truck and paused, leaning on it just long enough to pull the glass out. I felt a warm gush of blood down my leg and yanked my truck's door open, hauling myself onto the seat. I needed to sit down or I'd faint. Couldn't afford that. Arthur was still alive, still after me. Had to get out. Now would be good.

I fumbled with the key, which wouldn't fit in the ignition for some reason. Possibly because it was the house key, not the truck key. I swapped it for the other key, which was a little hard to jam in there due to the gore clotting its teeth. At least it worked - my trusty old truck roared to life just as Arthur appeared in the doorway.

Spurred on by fear, I put the pedal to the metal in spite of the pain in my leg. The truck grumbled and roared like a grumpy dinosaur, but it also peeled out of the driveway at a solid fifty-five miles per hour. Even Arthur couldn't run that fast - unless of course he'd met a speedster since I'd last seen him.

It began raining, slickening the roads, but I didn't dare slow down even though going this fast would have been dangerous on such a narrow, twisty road even if it were bone-dry and in broad daylight. I needed driving to demand my full attention, because if I let myself think about anything else

_(Charlie)_

I would break down completely. I couldn't afford to do that until I got to Peter, Claire, and Elle, or Arthur would catch me. Thank goodness he hadn't acquired super-speed or he would have already.

My escape seemed to be going off without a hitch until, with a sudden, blinding flash, lightning struck a tree on the other side of the road. The trunk broke near the bottom and the whole humongous thing fell, the top branches hitting the side of my truck. I had just enough time to regret not wearing a seatbelt before the truck tipped; then the world rolled over and over and went black.

**So, I'd say the story's off to a rip-roaring start, wouldn't you? We've already got violence and character death, and later we'll have major angst, breakdowns, BxP - all the things you liked about Resurgence, Reprise, and Resilience, with the additional fun of a very interesting reunion between our lovably clumsy heroine and a certain vamp who could've been the hero if Peter weren't in this story. Seriously, Peter saves the world. Edward plays the piano. Not much of a contest there. **


	2. A Lull in the Storm

**You guys have been marvelously patient; cyber-hugs to you all! I hope this is worth the wait. **

Chapter 2: A Lull in the Storm

_Jacob, Seth & Jared - the woods, somewhere between Forks & La Push_

_Man, this is a waste of time, _Seth grumbled. _There's been no sign of leeches in the area for, what, almost a week? I'm telling you, Peter erased that Alaskan coven's memories good before he sent them packing. They're not coming back. _

_Other bloodsuckers - nomads - might wander this way, _Jared pointed out in his usual cool, methodically logical way. _In any case, Sam wants us to patrol tonight, so we patrol. If the night's uneventful, at least we'll know there are no vampires arou- _

All three wolves screeched to a halt at exactly the same moment, putting their noses in the air as the wind blew a new scent to them: smoke.

Seth whined uneasily. _It's not a forest fire, is it? _

_I don't see how one could have started, _Jared said, though he didn't look completely sure. _And if that's what it is, there's nothing we can do about it. _

Jacob decided they should check it out anyway, and as he was second in command of the pack, Jared and Seth followed him. They ran in the direction from which the wind blew, and soon they could actually see smoke hanging in the air. Noticing where they were, Jacob realized with a sinking feeling that he knew where they were heading; when they tracked the smoke to its source, his worst fears were confirmed. The Swans' house was lit up like the fourth of July, the flames roaring on unabated in spite of the downpour, and looked to be on the verge of caving in.

Seth and Jared leapt in front of Jacob as he sprang forward, holding him back. _Jacob, don't! You can't go in there - the place is about to fall down!_

Jacob seemed not to hear Jared's warning, his thoughts fixed on just one thing. _Bella..._

_Look, her truck's gone. _Seth pointed his nose at the driveway, which was empty apart from Charlie's cruiser. _Either she wasn't home when the fire started, or she got out. Where would she go if she left? The fire department? _

_No, she'd run to Super-Freak. Let's go._ Jacob took off, Jared and Seth running after him but never able to catch up with him. The building he thought of as 'the freak-house' was on the opposite side of Forks from the Swan residence, but the wolves couldn't cut straight through Forks; instead they had to skirt around the town's edges, keeping under cover of the trees. They still reached the freak-house in record time. Jacob ran right up to the door, howling and telepathically calling Peter.

It was Elle who opened up, though. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Am I gonna have to call the dogcatcher?" She further expressed her displeasure by giving Jacob a hard zap on the nose.

"Be nice, Elle." Peter had finally appeared, still wearing his paramedic's jacket and looking none too pleased to see wolves at the door. Having been forced by a nasty car wreck to stay at work half an hour past the time his shift should have ended in order to deal with some truly horrific injuries, he was in no mood for Jacob Black. "What do you want?" he asked, shortly but not _too_ impolitely.

_Where's Bella? Is she okay! _

"I'd assume she's fine - she isn't here." Jacob said nothing, but Peter got a sense of his alarm and worry. "What's going on?"

_Bella's house is burning down, _Seth told him. _When we saw her truck gone, we assumed she'd come here. _

Although Elle only heard one side of the conversation, she'd gathered from Peter's and the wolves' body language that something was amiss. "Hey, somebody wanna fill in the non-telepath here?"

Rather than wasting time repeating stuff, Peter instructed her to go get Claire and then turned his attention to locating Bella.

"Get your own niece. I'm not your errand girl-" Elle broke off mid-protest as Peter disappeared. It was hard to have the last word when the other person could teleport away from you. "You want me to get the cheerleader? Okay Mr. Bossy-pants, I got your cheerleader..."

###

There existed a typical procedure for using clairvoyance, involving marking your subject's exact location on a map with a push-pin, and Peter normally used this method; however, in a real emergency situation - like tonight - he'd devised a way of cutting corners. It turned out a brief vision of a place was enough to let him teleport there without knowing an exact street address.

Using this shortcut, he found himself on a rain-drenched stretch of narrow, winding back road - road that appeared deserted. "Bella?" What could she possibly be doing _here_? There was no answer except a flash of lightning that momentarily blinded Peter and illuminated the hulking shape of a gigantic tree that had fallen across the road. _Oh no... Don't tell me..._ It would be just Bella's luck for a tree to fall on her vehicle.

Peter's dire prediction was a little off - the tree hadn't fallen on Bella's truck, just knocked it off the road. Of course, the steep drop-off less than an inch from the pavement made reaching the truck every bit as difficult as if there'd been a tree on top of it. Peter teleported down into the gully - he could've climbed down the embankment, but the rain had made it so slippery that he probably would have broken his neck; there was no time for that when Bella was in danger - and found her ancient fossil of a Chevy upside down and partially submerged in mud. He _might_ be able to get it upright again, but that would take too long and be too much trouble. Better to do this quick and dirty.

_This'll really piss Bella off, _flitted through the back of Peter's mind as he tried the driver's side door-handle and, finding it immovable, worked his fingers into the crack around the door's edges and peeled it back, bending the metal into an accordion-like shape until he could get a better grip on it. Then he ripped the door all the way off and threw it out of the way.

He found Bella lying on the cab's ceiling, her body a crumpled, motionless, bloody mess, neck bent at an awkward angle. How did she always manage to get herself into these fixes? Peter was sure none of his other associates turned up covered in blood and injuries as often as she did, and wouldn't you just know _she_ had to be the one most important to him...? He got her by the shoulders, dragged her limp form free of her wrecked truck and teleported back home to patch her up yet again.

###

Luckily Elle had complied - however grudgingly - with Peter's direction; Claire was waiting in the living room when he and Bella arrived. So were the three werewolves, who had phased back to human at the blondes' insistence. "What the hell happened to her?" Jacob demanded, jumping up when he saw the shape Bella was in.

"Forgot her seatbelt and crashed her truck. Claire, can you help me with her?"

"Yeah, put her on the couch. Seth, could you move?" Seth moved - quicker than normal thanks to Jacob and Elle each grabbing an arm and propelling him out of his seat - and Peter carefully laid Bella down so he and Claire could inspect her wounds and remove any glass stuck in them. Once her numerous cuts and scrapes were clear of foreign objects Peter went for the syringe; Claire stopped him. "Wait - let me try something different." She took Bella's hand and concentrated on trying to push her power directly into the other girl's body.

For a painfully long moment nothing happened; then the brunette's skin slowly began knitting itself back together. Peter straightened her neck, popping the bones back into their proper arrangement so any breaks and/or nerve damage could heal. "Nice work, Claire."

"Thanks. Someday I'd like to try this on somebody I don't have a weird pseudo-psychic link to, but Elle won't be my guinea pig."

"Yeah, as long as we've got cable I'm just not bored enough to let you drive your car over me so you can _maybe_ fix me. I'm irrational that way."

_Are they always like this? _Jared thought at Peter.

"Believe me, this is an improvement," he muttered, too low for the girls' human ears to catch. Then he added at a normal volume, "Hey, I think Bella's coming to, guys."

She blinked rapidly, unsure of where she was or how she got there. "Peter? Wh-what's happened?" Her confusion only mounted when he told her. "A fire? There wasn't any house fire..."

Jacob assured her that there was. "Hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?" he asked sympathetically. "But you'll be all right in no time... Bella?" She appeared to be having a panic attack. "What's wrong with her?"

"It wasn't a fire," she yelled, struggling against Jacob and Peter as they held her down. "It was _him_! He's back! K-killed Charlie..." Tears started in her eyes, and the fight drained out of her.

"Someone hurt Charlie?" Jacob asked loudly.

Claire smacked the back of his head. "You're not helping, Jake."

"Just calm down, Bella," Peter soothed, "and tell me about it. You said there was no fire?"

"No, it was him - Arthur. Peter, he's alive! He killed Charlie, and he must've set the house on fire to hide the b-body..." Her crying escalated into sobs.

"I'm sorry, did she just say Arthur is alive and in Forks?" Elle gathered a charge in one hand while growling at Peter, "So get to locating the son of a bitch already."

"No!" Bella bolted upright, seizing Peter's arm. "No you can't! He _killed_ my father - sliced his head right off, and he survived that explosion - he's too strong, don't you get it? We need to get as far away from him as possible!"

"She has a point; when we first came here, our plan was always to leave if he found us," Claire reminded Peter. "I mean, assuming we have time to leave and he's not about to bust in here with his goon squad."

Peter ran the hand not being numbed by Bella's vise-like grip through his hair, trying to think. "Okay... He might've traced us to Forks, but I doubt he knows our exact address or has a locator on his payroll, otherwise he'd have found us already - we should have at least an hour or two if he decides to stay and search the whole town for us, and that's a big 'if'. After Bella got away, he probably guessed she'd warn us about him."

"Yeah, the best time to attack someone isn't when they're waiting for you," Elle agreed, extinguishing the ball of lightning in her hand. "So you don't think he'll hit us tonight? I mean, you know him best."

Peter pretended not to hear the comment about his relationship to Arthur. "I don't _think_ so, but we probably shouldn't hang around to find out. Claire, I want you to go upstairs and grab the guns, your taser, and whatever cash we've got laying around, okay?"

"Okay." She left the room, and Peter turned back to Elle.

"I probably don't have to tell you this, but you know you can leave if you want. You don't have to stick with us."

"You're right, you don't have to tell me-"

"Hear me out. Arthur'll keep coming after Bella and Claire till we find a way to kill him or he gets the catalyst from them, but if you aren't with us I can't see him bothering you. You've got all that Company training - you could disappear, and he'd never...find you... What?"

Elle was looking at Peter almost pityingly. "Dude, have I ever told you what an idiot you are? I stuck with you to fight freaking _vampires_, and you think I'm scared of _Arthur_? He kept me prisoner for months, remember - I wanna take him down just as much as you do. Besides, I'm not about to let him get his hands on Bella." She spoke as though that final consideration settled the matter beyond all further argument.

Peter couldn't help feeling more than a little proud of his girlfriend; it seemed she'd made a smart choice in befriending Elle, even if everyone else - including him - had thought she was nuts. "Good, now go pack your bags. And Elle," he added in an undertone, "would you mind grabbing a sedative from the medicine cabinet?" He glanced meaningfully at Bella, who had crawled onto his lap, glued herself to him, and completely fallen apart.

He desperately wanted to comfort her, but there were more pressing issues to deal with first - making plans to get out of Forks before Arthur caught them, for instance. Then there was the small fact that anything he could say would be useless; a man who'd abducted and terrorized her in the past had broken into her home and murdered her father right in front of her, and no kind words or gesture could undo that. Add in the part where Peter hadn't been there to protect the Swans even though their relationship made stopping Arthur his responsibility... Yeah, any attempt at making her feel better would be _way_ too little, too late at this point.

Jacob jarred Peter out of his unpleasantly spiraling thoughts by clearing his throat loudly (and unnecessarily) and asking, "So...who the hell's this Arthur guy?"

Peter gave him a tight, rather ironic smile. "He's my father."

All three werewolves' faces took on almost comical expressions of disbelief. It was Seth who finally regained enough self-mastery to say, "Dude, if you that's a funny joke, it's not."

"I agree, it isn't funny; unfortunately I'm not joking. Arthur Petrelli really is my father."

"Whoa."

Jacob shoved Seth, causing him to do a face-plant into the coffee table. "'_Whoa_'? That's it, 'whoa'? Do they make a pill for what's wrong with you?"

"_Stop it!_" Bella screamed, startling the four guys. When they all looked at her, she promptly buried her face against Peter's neck again.

"So," Jared began, making an obvious effort to speak calmly and softly, "we're supposed to take it that your father has murdered Charlie Swan and intends to do the same to you, Bella, and the other two girls?"

"Yep."

"But _why_?"

Claire, who had returned just in time to catch the gist of what was being discussed, answered. "Well, he never approved of Peter's career choices and doesn't care for his girlfriend - pretty much the same reasons anyone has a falling-out with their kids. The Petrellis are just more homicidal than your average parents. And then there's this whole thing where Arthur created a formula that could give anybody abilities like ours, but to make it work without causing really ugly mutation as a side effect he needs a catalyst that happens to live in Bella's and my blood, and we won't let him have it. See, it's complicated."

The wolves just gaped at her; Seth's jaw actually fell open. At last Jacob managed, "And I used to think I had it bad morphing into a giant dog."

**Didn't intend to cut it off there; I just hit a slight snag and figured, hey, might as well end here so you all don't have to wait any longer. **


	3. Overcome by Events

**Woo-hoo, first chapter in this story over 3000 words! Since you've been waiting so long for it, I've put in extra action - and a little blood 'cause I love it so.**

Chapter 3: Overcome by Events

Elle shoved as much of her wardrobe as possible into a duffel bag, stuffing her shoes - she had considerably fewer of those than she used to, since the high heels she used to favor were impractical in a town as cold in Forks; her footwear collection consisted of more sneakers and boots these days - into the bottom and piling clothes on top. It was only when the bag was crammed full of her things that she noticed she hadn't packed so much as a single stitch for anyone else. _Well, the other girls can wear my stuff - come to think of it, Bella probably will need to borrow clothes from me and Claire awhile, 'cause all her stuff would have burned up..._ Good thing she'd mastered the art of folding clothing articles up small; she'd been able to fit a lot in one bag.

Then she realized that Peter had only asked her to pack for herself. It would have been reasonable to assume he intended everyone else to handle their own packing, but when he sent Claire off he'd just told her to grab the guns; besides, her intuition was prickling, telling her something wasn't quite right with their fearless leader's marching orders.

_BPOV_

I couldn't focus. I tried; I had the feeling that whatever was being discussed was important, but my brain refused to process anyone's words. No one seemed to be speaking to me anyway. I thought maybe Claire and Elle had left the room. Jacob was talking now - asking whether his dad would be in any danger if Arthur came back to Forks. It was common knowledge that Charlie Swan and Billy Black went way back.

Absurdly, my mind flashed back to when we'd first met on the beach at La Push, and I'd thought I could easily be friends with Jacob Black. Now I knew, with a dreadful certainty, that I would never see him, or Billy, or Angela and Jessica, or Forks, again. It wasn't my home anymore - my home was most likely nothing but ashes by now. Even if some part of the house still stood, I was sure Charlie- No, not Charlie; Charlie was gone. His _body_, I should say...

My face felt wet, and I gradually became aware that I was crying again. Odd - I thought my tear ducts would've run dry, as many tears as I'd already shed.

Peter promised to do whatever he could to protect the Blacks and our other friends in La Push; most of the words washed meaninglessly over me, except one thing he said: "I can't make any guarantees when it comes to Arthur."

"Tell me about it."

Everyone looked at me. It slowly dawned on me that I was the one who'd just spoken. "Sorry." My voice came out as a hoarse croak.

Peter said something to me, and despite feeling drained beyond the point of exhaustion, as if the very life had been sucked out of me, I forced myself to pay attention. "We're gonna have to get out of Forks tonight, out of Washington if possible. Are you up for that?"

I nodded hesitantly. I'd bet I could make it to the car, and after that I'd be able to just sit back and let Peter handle things - he always did, he wouldn't even really need me for a few hours. With him there I'd be able to sleep, which was all I wanted - to black out for a little while and forget. "Yeah," I mumbled, "'M good."

Just then Elle bounded into the room, clutching a bulging duffel bag and looking edgy. "I'm all packed. Ready to go?"

Peter seemed not to hear her question. "Good - Claire, give her one of the guns and your car keys. Elle, I want you to take Bella and head south. Get her as far from this town as you can."

I couldn't believe I'd heard correctly. "You're not coming?"

"No, Claire and I are gonna drop in on Nathan and my mother, and then we'll catch up with you."

"No! Don't go! Please, Peter, don't!" Too much had happened to me tonight; I couldn't handle being separated from him on top of everything else. "You can't leave me alone, not now! You just _can't_!"

He tried to calm me, unsuccessfully. Whatever I was doing - sobbing, screaming, wrestling with him as he tried to get me under control - I couldn't make myself stop. A tiny corner of my mind that still retained some vestige of clarity told me I was hysterical, or maybe that was Peter - he seemed to be echoing my thoughts, and telling Elle to hand him something...

I felt a sharp sting on the back of my neck and froze. A moment later my knees gave out, and Peter caught me - like he'd anticipated me falling. "What?" My eyesight was blurring, my brain fogging, my body shutting down rapidly. "You drugged me?" I whispered, struggling to stay conscious.

"I'm sorry, Bella. I'll be back before you know I'm gone."

He wouldn't be, I knew that. I tried to tell him, but my tongue felt thick and fuzzy and refused to form the words. _He should be staying with me._ But he wasn't. He was leaving me, and there was nothing I could do about it.

_End BPOV_

Bella went limp as the sedative worked on her; Peter caught her as she sagged toward the floor and scooped her up. He felt bad about injecting her without her permission, but it had to be done - she was hysterical, and there was no other way of snapping her out of it. Well, in retrospect, he supposed he could've slapped her or agreed not to go see Nathan and Angela until she was good to accompany him, but neither of those options were especially appealing.

Elle and Claire trailed after him as he carried Bella out to the Charger and placed her in the front passenger seat - making sure to fasten her seatbelt. "What am I supposed to do with an unconscious girl?" Elle demanded of no one in particular. "I can't exactly carry her into a motel with me, can I?"

"Stay on the road till she wakes up," Peter suggested. "Can you do that?"

"I think so. If I get too tired to drive safely I'll pull over on the roadside or something."

"Good. And Elle..." She looked questioningly at him. He swallowed and continued, voice somewhat lower than normal. "I'm trusting you to take care of her. Don't make me regret it."

"I won't - I know enough about Arthur's kind of company to avoid 'em. Bella's safe with me."

"We know," Claire said unexpectedly. "Good luck."

"Thanks," Elle replied, a little hesitantly. Of all the people to express confidence in her or wish her luck, Claire Bennet was the last one she'd ever have thought... It was definitely time to leave, before this night sprung any more surprises on her. She took the car keys from Claire, started the Charger up, and drove away.

It took a remarkably short time to reach the city limits of Forks, even without speeding. _They really weren't exaggerating about how small Forks is. At least something good came out of this whole fiasco: I won't have to live here anymore!_ Elle glanced at Bella, slumped in her seat, head flopping sideways, mouth hanging slightly open, and felt a twinge of guilt. _Not that I wanted her to be attacked and see her dad get killed just so I could leave this sodden little town. We were gonna move soon anyway, though I guess that plan's kaput now since we can't go anywhere we'd intended to before... So where will we go? Where _can_ we go that Arthur won't find us? _

Bella's neck was now bent at an uncomfortable-looking angle, and the blonde reached over to reposition her head so that it was straight. It didn't matter to Elle where they went or what they did next - she'd been an agent most of her life and, for the first time in a long time, she had an assignment: protect Bella Swan. She would do it, and not just because she didn't doubt for a second that Peter would hunt her down if she let anything hurt his precious Bella, though that was certainly cause for concern. _Nobody who has a single shred of self-preservation instincts _wouldn't _worry about making Peter mad, but this is mostly personal. Protecting Bella while she's out of commission is the least I can do after everything she's done for me. I'm just glad to get the chance to pay her back. _

She checked her sleeping friend - arguably the first real friend she'd ever had - to make sure she still looked comfy, then refocused her attention on the seemingly endless black expanse of highway ahead, preparing herself for a long, lonely, possibly dangerous night.

_Petrelli mansion, NYC_

The house was dark when they arrived. Claire guessed it would be - it was late at night or very early in the morning, and Nathan and Angela didn't exactly strike her as the 'stay up all night' type - but somehow it seemed _too_ dark. Or maybe dark wasn't the right word; more than just not having any lights on, the place felt empty, like the inhabitants were gone. "Peter?" For some reason she felt compelled to whisper. "They're not home, are they?"

Peter's head was cocked, as if he was listening hard to something Claire couldn't hear. "No, somebody's here," he whispered back, "but their minds don't feel like Nathan and Mom... Come here!" He reached for Claire's hand, having decided that they should teleport out posthaste, but before she got to him a dozen men appeared, their all-black clothing making it look as though they'd melted right out of the shadows, all aiming really big guns at Peter and Claire.

"Freeze!"

"Okay, sure. Why not?" After all, Peter didn't need to move to take these guys out; using telekinesis, he sent the men flying before any of them had so much as taken up the slack on their triggers.

A thirteenth man approached then; his black uniform indicated that he was part of the same unit, but unlike the other twelve he was unarmed. He also seemed unfazed by the sight of his comrades lying dazed on the ground - his gaze passed indifferently over them and went immediately to Peter. "Hmm...impressive reflexes. Peter Petrelli, I presume?"

"That's me," Peter said tersely; he sensed a strange power seething behind the man's blank dark eyes, just waiting to be unleashed. Although he was unclear on what would happen when it was, he read enough in the man's mind to convince him that he didn't want to stick around for the show. Still, there was something he needed to know before he could leave. "What've you done with my brother and my mother?"

The man inspected the fingernails of his left hand, perfectly nonchalant and deliberately _not_ thinking anything even remotely useful. "Why would you automatically assume I've done something to them? How do you know they're not in on this?"

"They wouldn't do that," Peter said at once. Angela had been against Arthur last time, and surely Nathan wasn't stupid enough to go back to him...right?

"True." The man let a soft sigh of impatience slip past his mostly emotionless exterior. "Honestly, Nathan and Angela aren't my concern - I'm just here for the girl."

Peter moved in front of Claire. "Over my dead body."

A careless shrug. "Whatever you say." The man stepped forward; Peter tried to throw him back, but his telekinetic energy seemed to bounce right off this guy. No, not bounce off him - he _absorbed_ it. Worse, Peter's second attempt at attacking him felt weaker. The man smiled unpleasantly, his steely gray-black eyes seeming to come alive for the first time. "Keep it up, Petrelli - the more you throw your power at me, the more I suck it out of you. But I'll give it back - plus interest." He seized Peter's wrist, and released the power that had been building inside him all night for this confrontation, plus what he'd just leeched from the empath.

Peter's world shattered in a burst of white-hot pain. It was like Kirby Plaza all over again, except worse - the power this man was dumping into him magnified everything by...some really big exponent. If it was possible to turn a person's skull into a microwave and cook their brain, then Peter was experiencing it live and in blazing Technicolor. The end, when it came, was a welcome relief.

###

Claire watched in horror as Peter fell to the floor, blood leaking from his ears, the whites of his half-open eyes reddening as the capillaries inside them broke. She expected him to jump back up any second now and kick the man in black's ass into the middle of next week...except that didn't seem to be happening. His body stayed where it had fallen and showed no sign of repairing whatever damage the man had done. Well, she'd wanted a chance to try healing someone besides Bella, but not like this...

She dropped to her knees beside Peter - or tried to. The man caught her arms and held her upright. "You bringing Petrelli back is not on tonight's agenda," he hissed in her ear. Noticing that his colleagues were coming to, he barked at the one nearest him, "You! Get up, cuff the girl, and take her to transport."

"Yes, sir!" Shaking his head to clear the last of the cobwebs clouding his mind, the guy scrambled to his feet and started to snap off a quick salute, then froze mid-motion when his boss threatened to shoot him if he saluted one more time. "Y-yes sir."

Next minute, Claire found her hands tied behind her back with a plastic flex-cuff that bit uncomfortably into her wrists. Then three more guys in black - she decided they must be commandos of some sort based on their uniforms and behavior toward the man who was obviously in charge - hustled her to the door leading outside, two of them gripping her upper arms and the third pushing her along with a hand on her back.

And still Peter hadn't moved. Why wouldn't his injuries heal? The commandos seemed totally unconcerned about him, like he was just another dead body. Claire refused to accept that they might be right, that Peter might not come back, but at the same time she couldn't believe that, if he was alive, he would let her be dragged off like this. "No! Let me go! Peter!" She dug her heels in when her escort brought her to the door, not wanting to just walk off and desert him, and a hard, cold thing pressed through her hair, against the back of her head; she recognized it as the muzzle of a gun.

"Don't worry about Peter," one of them advised her in a grim undertone. "Worry about yourself."

"Why? You gonna kill me too?"

Instead of answering verbally, the one behind Claire prodded her with his gun. She understood the message: _keep moving or I just might. _Resisting would do no good at the moment; she couldn't help anyone if she was dead. She allowed her captors to take her outside with no further struggling on her part.

There was a large black van waiting in front of the Petrelli mansion - the transport. Claire sized it up as one of the men opened its rear doors - the other two maintaining a firm grip on her all the while in case she tried to run, though she couldn't have gotten far - and announced that she couldn't climb in with her hands bound. The men nodded silently, and one of them hopped up into the van first; then another lifted her. The one already in the van then pulled her inside while one of the other two - quite unnecessarily, in Claire's opinion - pushed her up. She knew for a fact she wasn't that heavy, and she definitely did _not_ need or want some guy's hand on her butt.

Once she was in, she saw that the commandos' vehicle only looked like a regular van from the outside. On the inside it was rigged like one of those armored trucks they used to cart prisoners between penitentiaries - metal bench seats bolted to the floor, restraints affixed to the walls, a bulletproof barrier separating the driver's and shotgun seats from the passengers' area, the works. It seemed like overkill for one girl whose only ability was regeneration. Claire wondered who these men thought she was, what they thought she'd done, that justified what they were doing to her. And what their leader had done to Peter...

Was he really gone? She closed her eyes against the sting of tears trying to escape, and consequently didn't realize that the man in charge had boarded the van until he ordered her chained to the wall; then she was shoved down onto a bench, steel cuffs attached to maybe five inches of chain tethering her to the van's side. One of the men got up front to drive, and the leader sat in back with Claire, but none of the other eleven got into the van. Presumably they had their own ride somewhere down the block, or they were going someplace else - Claire doubted she was being taken anywhere within walking distance.

The leader confirmed this; as they got underway he said, "We've got some hours' ride ahead of us - I hope you're comfortable."

Claire chose not to dignify this piece of blatant sarcasm with a response. Instead she demanded, "Who are you?" in the most poisonous tone she could muster.

"Mitchell Grande - _General_ Mitchell Grande, to be precise - but you might as well call me Mitch. Assuming your grandfather doesn't dispose of you after he gets what he needs from you, we'll have a long time together." Claire started to tell Mitch that he could go to a really hot, brimstony place, but he never gave her the chance. "Now that I've been considerate enough to answer your question, why don't you be a good little girl and tell me where I can find Isabella Swan?"

**Now that he's made another appearance, I'd better warn you that we haven't seen the last of Mitch Grande. I've experimented a little with creating my own villains in Resurgence; this is the first time one of those has popped up in more than a couple chapters and then gotten arrested or killed. It's OK if you're annoyed by that - you're ****supposed**** to hate this guy - just please don't flame me for it. I generally don't like OCs, but Arthur needed a new sidekick after Flint and Knox died and Tracy realized he wasn't a good guy. So here he is. Sorry.**


	4. Night Drive

**WARNING: this chapter features idiotic behavior from Bella (though that can be attributed to the aftereffects of being drugged), and assault at the end. There's also a distinct lack of our hero, sorry Peter fans! **

Chapter 4: Night Drive

_"Now that I've been considerate enough to answer your question, why don't you be a good little girl and tell me where I can find Isabella Swan?" _

Claire responded with a sharp, mirthless laugh. "You think I'm gonna help you track down my best friend so you can kill her like you did Peter? You're insane!"

Mitch frowned, disappointed but not discouraged. "No, I didn't really expect you would; I just thought I'd give you the opportunity to save yourself some pain, but if you'd rather have your little friend's location ripped out of your mind, that's your choice."

Fear sliced through Claire like a knife, making her heart pound so hard she could actually feel its pulse in her ears and fingertips. Arthur and this man knew about the catalyst being split between her and Bella; did they also know about the resultant connection that made the two girls somehow hyper-aware of one another's presence? Once or twice she and Bella had used this to find each other when they'd really needed to - even when Bella's shield prevented anyone else locating her with regular clairvoyance. If Arthur succeeded in taking Claire's half of the catalyst from her, didn't it logically follow that _he_ would then be linked to Bella? Then he'd be able to track her wherever she went, and her shield would be useless against him. _But how could they possibly know?_

Working hard to keep her expression neutral, Claire searched Mitch's face for any clue as to how much of what he'd said was actual knowledge and how much was just an attempt to rattle her, but it was useless. His features - blandly forgettable apart from a slightly flattened nose, the relic of some accident - were not very readable, and his gray eyes were cold and expressionless as a sheet of metal. They gave away nothing.

Unnerved, Claire averted her gaze and addressed her next words to a spot beside Mitch's head. "So...you're Arthur's replacement for Flint and Knox. How'd that happen?" Just because those steely black hole-like eyes freaked her out a little, it wasn't enough to deter her from trying to get information out of their owner.

"Why should I tell you?" he countered pleasantly, as if they were having a friendly conversation over drinks. "I already answered one of your questions, and you won't tell me anything."

Claire tried to match his tone. "You said we've got a long ride ahead - I just thought it might go faster if we talked."

Mitch smirked. "I can be patient. But if you'd like to talk, feel free."

Claire sighed; she obviously wasn't going to be able to trick anything out of this guy. She tried a more direct approach. "Look, what could it hurt to tell me how you met Arthur? You've got me, right?" She emphasized her point by shaking the chain binding her hands behind her back, making it clank against the van's wall. "I can't go anywhere."

"Hmm...I guess you have a point there." Mitch cocked his head to one side, considering. At last he said, "All right, I'm not a replacement for the thug and the dimwit. I met Arthur a long time ago, when they were still alive - I was the liaison who first pitched Pinehearst's project to the army's top brass, in fact."

"_Why_? I mean, on the surface having super-soldiers to send over to the Middle East sounds like a great deal; I get that. But you've gotta know that you can't just go around giving powers to whoever you think should have them. It'd be chaos!"

Mitch was completely unperturbed. "Yes, it probably will be. So what? It doesn't matter to me if the world gets overrun with out-of-control posthumans when I can take care of them as easily as I did your uncle."

The impulse to strike him across the face was so strong Claire couldn't keep herself from jumping up to act on it - or trying to. The chain yanked her back before she'd risen more than an inch or two off her bench seat. Mitch's mouth curled up at the corners as he watched her struggle; he enjoyed it, though his eyes stayed cold. "Problem, little girl?"

Claire kicked him in the shins. "Fuck you! You really are psycho, you know that?"

An almost animalistic rage flared in his eyes, twisting his whole face into an ugly snarl...and then his sarcastically smiling mask slid back into place. Claire took this as further confirmation that he really was a psychopath. He tucked his legs underneath his bench - out of range of her feet - folded his hands in his lap, and turned his eyes to the space on Claire's side of the vehicle where the window would have been in a normal van.

He was now ignoring her completely; Claire understood that conversation time was over. As she hadn't been thrilled to be talking to Mitch in the first place, this pleased her...for about five minutes or less. Then she realized she now had nothing to take her mind off the cuffs pinching her wrists and the cramps forming in her arms and shoulder blades. She cleared her throat and hesitantly asked, "Um, how long will it take to get wherever we're going?"

Without looking at her, Mitch replied in a disinterested tone, "Like most military bases where top-secret operations are carried out, the place we're heading is isolated - which means it has to be a long way from New York City. It takes seventeen hours to drive there. Twenty in winter when the roads are icy."

_Seventeen hours!_ Once she knew she was going to be stuck in this uncomfortable position for seventeen hours, Claire's muscles seemed to cramp even harder.

_Elle & Bella - a highway somewhere near the Washington-Oregon state line_

They'd been on the road for what seemed like forever. Of course Elle knew that couldn't really be the case, but it sure felt that way. Last time she'd glanced at it, the glowing dashboard clock had told her it was almost three in the morning; however, as she had failed to notice what time it was when she left Forks, this didn't help her determine how long she'd been driving. All she knew was that her eyes were becoming sore from staring out into the headlights' field of illumination - this only extended a few feet in front of the car, not enabling her to make out much of their surroundings except the tall, dark shapes of trees, which all looked pretty much alike; they could have been going around in circles, moving constantly and never getting anywhere, like something in a _Twilight Zone_ episode for all she knew - her fingers were growing stiff and sore from being curled around the steering wheel so long, and she was so tired her head felt like it was stuffed with useless cotton batting instead of an actual working brain. Elle shut her eyes for a single second, just to give them a little break from the burning glare of the headlights, just for one second...

The next thing she felt was a teeth-jarring _BUMP_ as the right-side tires went off the pavement and the Charger listed sharply. Elle cursed loudly and slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt just in the nick of time. The ground sloped steeply away from the road, and if the left front tire had gone off too, Elle probably couldn't have saved them from taking a tumble downhill. She put the car in reverse and stomped on the accelerator, causing the car to shoot backward onto the highway. After getting it straight in the right lane again, she put it in park and just sat a moment.

All traces of sleepiness had been blasted from her mind by the near-accident; the adrenaline rush it brought on made her hyper-alert, so much so that her vision seemed sharper and she could practically feel her nerves jangling, her heart pounding. She also felt a burst of inwardly-directed fury. _Idiot!_ she raged at herself, _What did you say you were gonna do if you got too tired to drive safely? Pull over! But did you pull over? No, instead you almost got yourself killed, and Bella-_

_ Bella!_ Kicking herself for temporarily forgetting the car's other occupant, Elle gave the brunette a quick but thorough check-over. Luckily Bella was okay except for having fallen into another awkward position - she was still dead to the world. _Geez, whatever Peter dosed her with must've been strong enough to put an elephant in a coma! Maybe I need to check if she's still breathing..._

She was. Reassured that she wasn't illegally transporting a dead body, Elle resumed driving. Now that she was awake she noticed a light on the horizon, too bright to be anything but artificial. That meant some form of civilization, hopefully including one of those fast food restaurants that were open twenty-four hours a day and/or a motel. The safest course of action would be to stop somewhere for the night; staying in one place might increase the chances of them getting caught, but to keep driving while exhausted would be to risk crashing for real, and there was no Claire here this time to fix the resultant injuries. Motel it was, then. Failing that, Elle _really_ needed a cup of coffee.

###

The first open-for-business establishment they came to was a truck stop - looked like she would be getting coffee first. Afterward she could search for some place to stay, and work on a way of moving Bella inside - caffeine would help her think more clearly.

The place looked a little rundown, and the nearby gas station appeared positively derelict - most girls would've been afraid to go into a joint like this alone, but Elle knew she could take care of herself. Bella, on the other hand... Well, Elle didn't like to leave her unguarded. _I'll park away from all the trucks and lock her in, _she decided. _No one'll even know she's here, and I can be in and out in less than ten minutes. _

Bella stirred ever so slightly and mumbled something indistinguishable. Did this mean she was finally waking up? It was the first sign of life she'd shown in hours... Then she went still again, apparently not waking up after all.

"Sit tight till I get back, Bella." She wasn't sure if the other girl could hear her, but hey, the words might sink into her subconscious. One could never take too many precautions with Bella Swan.

Elle parked the car in a dark, deserted corner of the lot, got out (taking the keys with her), and locked the doors. Bella hardly moved. Elle hesitated on the curb for a moment, watching her through the windshield just to make absolutely certain she was still out of it, then walked off toward the front entrance leading to the truck stop's diner area, confident that Bella wasn't going anywhere.

_A few minutes later_

_BPOV_

For a long while there was nothing. I couldn't tell how long I'd spent in this state of nothingness - I seemed to have lost all sense of time here, just floating in blackness.

Gradually other things found their way into my mind, a sound or a sense of moving though my body remained perfectly inert, but these registered only dimly, as if it was someone else hearing and feeling them. As if I wasn't really present. It was very peaceful, not being there; I could sleep like this forever.

Then everything was still, and slowly a new sensation seeped into my fogged-up brain: a feeling of being alone, abandoned. I tried to ignore it, to sink back into unawareness, but the feeling, this total _absence _of anyone besides me, wouldn't go away, and the longer it stayed, the more anxiety I felt.

At last it was enough to wake me; my eyes shot open, rolling in their sockets as I looked around. I experienced a moment of panic, not knowing where I was as my eyes adjusted to the dark. Once they did and I recognized where I was - sitting in Claire's Dodge Charger, a comfortingly familiar place - my panic subsided, but I still felt deeply uneasy. As I'd suspected, I was all alone. Peter, Claire, and Elle were nowhere to be seen - in fact, I didn't see _anyone_.

The dingy-looking building I saw through the rear window was completely foreign to me and not especially reassuring, but at least it was well-lit. If the large number of ten- and eighteen-wheelers clustered outside was any indication, there were bound to be people in there. Still I hesitated; for some reason I thought I was supposed to stay where I was, to sit tight. My desire to find other people quickly overrode this impulse, though - being all by myself out here made me feel hideously vulnerable. Besides, maybe my friends had gone inside and hadn't wanted to interrupt my sleep. There was no reason for me to sit in the car alone now that I was awake.

I unlocked the door and climbed out, taking a moment to stretch my kinked muscles, then headed up the lot to the building. Being up and moving felt wonderful - how long had I slept anyway? Must've been a long time to make me this stiff.

As I approached an eighteen-wheeler with 'Frigis Express' stenciled on the side, a man circled around the cab. His eyes widened at the sight of me, and he dropped his cigarette on the ground, carelessly grinding it out with the heel of his boot. "Well hey there, missy."

"Uh...hello," I said uncertainly.

He chuckled. "Yo, Johnny! Lookee what we've got here!" A second man strolled over, also smoking a cigarette, eyeing me curiously. The first man let out another snort of laughter and barked, "Guess we won't have to go lookin' for girls tonight after all, huh?"

Johnny frowned. "I dunno, Macky, she don't look like no streetwalker I ever saw. They wasn't big on sweats last I checked, and they had shoes."

"I'll buy 'er a pair then, picky-ass," Macky said with a roll of his eyes; then he turned to me. "Whatcha say, girly?"

Frozen as my vocal cords were, I doubted I would be able to say anything. How did this kind of thing keep happening to me? Why was _I_ always the one being abducted, chased, beaten up, and now harassed by a pair of greasy truckers who'd mistaken me for a hooker? More importantly, why the hell hadn't I stayed in the car, where these two would likely never have noticed me? _Stupid, stupid Bella! Why am I so stupid?_

Macky grew impatient when I just stared dumbly at him. "Hey, what's your problem, girl?"

"Maybe she's retarded or somethin'," Johnny suggested. "C'mon Macky, you can't wanna do a retard."

Macky gave an extremely vulgar reply, the gist of which was that he didn't care about the state of my brain as long as certain _other_ parts of my anatomy were in working order. As he closed the distance between us, I tried desperately to push through the haze in my head and project my shield - I could happily bang this pervert's skull against his truck hard enough to dent it - only to find that my ability wouldn't work. I could feel it inside, but I couldn't find the strength or focus to push the shield beyond myself or even make it solid. Shielding just my mind wasn't going to help me out of this situation.

Macky's lips crashed against mine, his thick, slimy tongue forcing its way into my mouth, his rancid breath choking me - how long had it been since he'd brushed his teeth? A year? - and I was powerless to stop him.

**Show of hands, how many of you expected Bella would wake up just in time to wander off and get into trouble? Let this be a lesson to you, girls: don't go walking around derelict truck stops alone at night! Same goes for you guys - you never know when you might run into some homeboy with a gun or knife or something. **


	5. Rescue & Reunion

**Gosh it's been a long time since I updated! Those of you who're reading Lightning Strikes know from my last A/N that I'm back in school now; those of you who don't read LS, now you know where I've been. My first exam is on the upcoming Tuesday - wish me luck, guys!**

Chapter 5: Rescue & Reunion

Elle concluded her business in the diner with remarkably little incident; the exclusively male clientele, a bunch of tired-looking truckers, most sporting stained jeans or greasy ponytails, or both, had watched her intently, but only one gave her any hint of trouble. She grabbed his hand before it made contact with her rear end and bent his wrist painfully backward while advising him to keep his hands to himself. She then released him and left, clutching her coffee, feeling its warmth on her fingers through the Styrofoam cup.

Outside, she paused to take a sip and promptly burned her tongue. _Dammit! Why do they make these things so freaking hot? Warm is good, scalding...not so much. Someone should really tell them that._

Her musings on the flaws in coffee preparation were rudely interrupted by a loud scream that she instinctively knew belonged to Bella - really, how many other girls with a knack for getting themselves in trouble could there be around here? _Shit!_ She dropped her coffee cup and raced off to rescue her danger-prone friend.

Elle found Bella pinned against an eighteen-wheeler by the truck's operator, who had pulled her head back by the hair so she couldn't scream again. Elle electrocuted them both, using her full blast without a second's hesitation; Bella's shield protected her, the electric current flowing over her skin but not burning or harming her in any way.

Macky the trucker was less fortunate. His body jerked like a marionette being operated by an insane or very unskilled puppeteer when the blast hit. Elle held it on him for a long moment, enjoying his yells of pain - as far as she was concerned the creep deserved to suffer for assaulting poor Bella, who had already been through more than enough in one night, or any number of nights for that matter.

At last Macky lost consciousness, at which point Elle stopped producing electricity and let him crumple unceremoniously to the ground. She started toward Bella, but she hadn't taken a single step in the brunette's direction before she heard a stifled gasp and the _slap-slap_ of running feet; she looked for the sound's source and saw a man in a t-shirt bearing the same logo as Macky's heading for the diner as fast as his feet would carry him. Uh-oh, a witness. Letting him go after he'd seen her using her ability was out of the question. She sent a lightning bolt after him, catching him in the back, and he went down like a ton of bricks.

Then Elle turned her attention to Bella, who was still flattened against the truck, eyes wide, jaw hanging open. "Bella? Hey, you okay?"

Next thing Elle knew, Bella was clinging to her, thanking her and staining her shirt with saltwater.

_Well, this is awkward._ "Uh, Bella," Elle began as gently as possible...for her, "Peter might like when you're all over him, but I'm really not the touchy-feely type. I'm not your boyfriend, either." This statement, while admirably nonabrasive for Elle, failed to achieve the desired result of making Bella let go of her. _Okay, screw being nice._ Elle reached behind herself and unhooked the younger girl's arms from around her waist. "Seriously, enough love here."

Bella sniffled. "S-s-sorry. I just-"

Elle didn't think she could take any more stammered expressions of gratitude. "Okay, let's see if you're hurt anywhere."

"I'm fine, at least physically."

"No you're not - your mouth is bleeding!"

Bella wiped the blood from her lip, examining her fingertips with an odd detachment before cleaning them on her sweatpants. "Oh, that isn't mine. That sleazebag tried to kiss me, so I bit him. Then I kneed him in the groin. But I guess I didn't do it hard enough, since he wasn't too incapacitated to grab my hair before I could get away."

"Good for you - biting and kicking, I mean, not getting caught. Speaking of which, how the hell did you end up tangling with those guys in the first place? What part of staying in the car is too difficult for you? Or are you going for some kind of record - 'Most Near-Fatal Experiences in One Night'? Is that like a category in the Guinness Book of World Records or something?"

"I'm sorry! I woke up alone in the car and thought I'd join you guys inside." She looked around expectantly, as if waiting for someone besides Elle to appear. "Where are Peter and Claire anyway?"

Elle stared. Maybe Bella had some talent for erasing things she didn't want to think about from her mind - kind of like how Elle had never remembered her father experimenting on her, except without assistance from the Haitian. Then again, maybe it was just the drugs. Either way, Elle was left with the task of breaking news she highly doubted the other girl would welcome. _Thanks for nothing, Peter. I could _so_ kill you right now._ "Um...Bella...Peter and Claire went to his mom's house to make sure she and Nathan weren't in any danger from Arthur, don't you remember? When he told me to take you and go without him, you...well, you flipped out on him...so he had to sedate you..."

Bella's face crumpled before Elle's eyes. It was like watching a baby getting ready to throw a howling, crying, screaming fit - which was probably about what Bella was fixing to do. _Oh crap..._

But Bella didn't howl. She didn't scream. She didn't even really cry, at least not loudly; the tears just sort of pooled in her eyes, then spilled over silently. "I remember now," she whispered. "He said he'd be there when I woke up...so why isn't he here?" She looked at Elle, waiting for her to provide an answer. "I had to have been out for hours; he should be back by now shouldn't he?"

Elle shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what's keeping him. Maybe Arthur captured Angela and Nathan, and Peter has to rescue them," she suggested. "'Cause, you know, that's what Peter does."

"Or maybe _he_ needs rescuing," Bella countered. "Or maybe he's been killed. Oh God, he _is_ dead, isn't he? Why else would he not be here? First Charlie, now Peter and Claire..." The waterworks escalated.

"Hey, don't say that. Peter and Claire can't even die."

"They can if you shoot them in the head. Or Arthur could've taken their abilities and then shot them."

"Well, if you wanna be pessimistic about it. Look, I'm sure they're both perfectly alive and all right; they're just...running a little late, is all."

Bella didn't seem to hear her; she was now hugging herself, rocking back and forth from her heels onto the balls of her feet and back, and looking every inch the part of someone about to have a complete nervous breakdown. "Wh-what am I gonna d-do now?"

_That's what I'd like to know._ Elle was out of her depth here and she knew it; she might be the go-to girl when Bella needed protection from superpowered psychos or random sleazy truckers, but when she got all weepy...that was more Peter's deal. He was the one Bella wanted to comfort her anyway, except he couldn't because, according to her, he was probably lying dead in a ditch somewhere, stripped of his powers and therefore stranded in New York, or otherwise down for the count. Which was just fan-freaking-tastic.

Besides being the only one (well, other than Claire, maybe) who could handle Bella when she started imitating a geyser, he was also the one who was supposed to plan their next move. Thanks to her Company background, Elle was okay with escape and evasion, but her real skills lay in capture and tracking (and torture and assassination). Plus, the Company had always taught her to simply follow orders; one of the great strategists of her time, she was not.

Peter, on the other hand, possessed decent planning skills _and_ a better understanding of Arthur Petrelli than Elle, Claire, or Bella could claim, having grown up with the man. So, much as it killed Elle to admit it, they really needed the bossy empathic goody-good to come back. If he'd really had the nerve to die on them, Elle thought she might just kill him.

_Peter Petrelli - same place we saw him last_

Waking up, the first thing he noticed was a lingering pain in his head. The second thing was that the house looked different. It was more deserted than he'd ever seen it, but that wasn't it. Finally Peter realized the light was what had changed; the room was now filled with a fuzzy gray predawn luminescence, though Peter distinctly remembered that it had been the dead of night when he arrived here with Claire. _Claire..._

"Claire? Hey, Claire?"

Nobody answered, and another recent memory slowly emerged - he and Claire had been ambushed by a bunch of men in black, though regrettably not the funny Will Smith kind - their leader had somehow weakened Peter when he tried to use his powers against him, and then apparently knocked him out. Knocked him out for a long time, too - since absorbing Claire's regeneration, Peter had never been unconscious longer than a few minutes. Judging by the sunrise outside, this time it had been several hours. Peter really needed to figure out what the hell that guy had done to him...later.

Right now the important thing was that that same guy had most likely abducted Claire, and it was up to Peter to save her from whatever unpleasantness might be in store for her. He picked himself up off the floor and performed a quick check to make sure his abilities were functional. Because Peter was an _empathic_ mimic, the easiest powers for him to activate were the ones he'd absorbed from people he cared about, so he tried those first.

Mental shield? Check. (Where was Bella now? The Nitrazepam he'd dosed her with would have worn off hours ago; she was probably awake and wondering where the hell _he_ was. Was she mad at him for not being there? Was she scared for him? Had waking up to find him and Claire gone upset her all over again? Peter knew it probably had, and felt horrible for not being with her, then forced his mind away from Bella - thinking of her when he couldn't drop everything and go to her was too hard.)

Healing, as evidenced by his vanishing headache? Check. (At least the man in black couldn't hurt Claire - that much was good. That, and the fact that she didn't have Bella's shield or overprotective streak, so Peter would be able to locate and rescue her, and she wouldn't mind him doing so.)

Levitation? Check. (Nathan's absence was frankly worrying; sure as Peter was that his brother hadn't rejoined Arthur's team, he couldn't rule out the possibility of Arthur telepathically controlling Nathan, or even killing him if he wasn't on board and couldn't be persuaded. Peter resolved to look hard for Nathan at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately there were more pressing matters at the moment, like making sure Arthur didn't get his hands on Claire.)

Electricity manipulation? Check. (So Elle Bishop now ranked as one of the important people in Peter's life? Well, she was the one to whom he'd entrusted the safety of the girl he loved - arguably _the_ most important person in his life - while said girl was unable to defend herself. Peter guessed that made Elle pretty important, at least temporarily. She'd just better be doing a damn good job taking care of Bella. Or else.)

###

Peter located Claire, teleported...and found himself standing on the roof of a black van. Using Bella's ability-detecting sixth sense, he confirmed that Claire was inside the van, and that she wasn't alone. Peter hadn't expected her to be; if Arthur wanted the catalyst so badly, it wouldn't make sense for him to leave the host - _one_ of the hosts, anyway - unguarded when he finally captured her. If he'd managed to catch both Claire _and_ Bella, he'd probably have them under security to rival that of Fort Knox as they were transported to him.

The part where Claire's guard was the same man who'd managed to take Peter out - and he was sure it was the same man; he'd recognize the feel of that guy's power anywhere - was a complication. _I've gotta play this smart, _he realized. _Can't go charging in without a plan this time, or I'll just end up getting my ass handed to me again. _

The good news was that the energy manipulator didn't seem aware that Peter had recovered from his attack and was currently perched atop his van. _If he can't sense that I'm here...maybe it means he won't be able to absorb my energy if I don't use my powers against him directly._ It was only a hunch, but one worth looking into.

Peter flew away, executed a sharp one-eighty-degree turn in midair, flew back at full speed, and rammed into the van. It skidded across the road, hit the guardrail, flipped over it, and kept on flipping end over end all the way down a steep hillside. Amazingly, it hit the bottom right side up...and then exploded.

He found Claire lying stunned and dazed on a sheet of metal that until recently had been one of the van's sides, her arms pinned underneath her, skin badly burnt and lacerated, and her shirt on fire. Peter smothered the flames with his jacket.

"Thanks," she managed in between coughs. "Can you...?" She rolled onto her side so Peter could see the chains holding her down, which had unfortunately remained intact.

"You bet." He disintegrated said chains, then picked her up and flew away from the still-burning crash site.

Less than a minute later Claire said, "Okay, I'm all healed. You can put me down now," so he landed. She didn't release her grip on him when they were back on the ground, though; instead she held him tighter. "I thought you were dead," she whispered. "I saw you not heal after Mitch did...whatever he did to you. How are you not dead?"

"I think for a while I was," Peter admitted. "I did heal, it just took longer than usual. I don't understand why that is or exactly what happened when I tried to fight him, but I'm gonna find out."

"Good idea - you need to understand his ability since I bet you've absorbed it."

_Another dangerous power, _Peter thought unhappily. _Great._

"I found out some stuff too," Claire went on. "We should find Bella and Elle and fill them in."

"Right." Peter closed his eyes, clearing his mind of everything except his girlfriend and her electric pal. A moment later: "I got nothing - Bella must be shielding them. Do _you_...uh...have any idea where she is?"

"Well, not like a street address - this thing between us isn't like being clairvoyant. It's more that I can..._feel_ her out there...like the Ring calling to Sauron or something. I just know that if I wanna find her I should head thataway." She turned to point in a seemingly random direction.

Peter took her outstretched hand, pulling it back down to her side. "I'm not planning on us walking." He entered Claire's mind and teleported, letting her Bella-finding mental radar guide him.

They materialized in a small, clean, but somewhat shabby motel room - and were immediately knocked off their feet by a high-voltage electrical blast. Peter had been zapped by Elle many times before, but this time felt different. Instead of hurting him, Elle's lightning just felt like pure energy - energy that Peter could take and use.

Then Claire shouted, "Elle, stop! It's just us!" and the attack ceased before Peter had a chance to act on or fight this new impulse.

Elle stepped back, folding her arms across her chest. "You don't teleport in on people when they're expecting to be attacked! Are you insane, or do you just enjoy electrocution?"

Knowing Claire couldn't teleport, she directed this at Peter, but he didn't have a retort for her. Instead he just asked, "Bella? Is she-?"

"Over there." Elle jerked her head toward the room's single, rather dilapidated bed, where Bella sat with her knees curled into her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, staring at Peter and Claire as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "She's been like that for hours, minus the 'I just saw a ghost' look."

Peter approached her slowly, unsure of what her reaction meant. "Bella? Hey, you okay?"

She flinched away when he sat down beside her but made no move to put more distance between them. "Is it really you?" she whispered.

Elle scoffed. "Of course it's really him. I don't think you'd imagine your boyfriend being here when he's not, would you? Anyway, how did I just zap him and talk to him if he's _your_ hallucination?"

"I...I don't know. So I'm not seeing things?" Bella anxiously bit her lower lip while keeping her eyes glued to Peter, like he might disappear if she blinked.

"Bella, it's me. I'm really here." He reached out to brush his fingertips over her cheek.

A tremor went through her body at his touch, and then she threw herself at him like a human bullet. "Oh God, Peter, I thought I'd lost you..."

"That's not gonna happen." He opted not to mention that in all likelihood he _had_ been dead awhile - it was plainly the last thing she needed to hear at present. Besides, it wasn't important. He was fine now, and Bella was safe, and he was holding her again; at the moment, that was all that mattered.

**That was a really mushy ending. *Shame* But don't think Peter's totally off the hook for drugging Bella; I just felt like ending the chapter on an up note, as those have been in rather short supply so far.**

**New info on this story: someone asked me where Edward and Sylar are, so let me assure you that I will get to them. They'll be in ch7.**

**Second, I'm thinking I will most likely work Samuel Sullivan and his carnival in at some point, and possibly Danko, though I'm less sure about him. If that happens, I'll probably make it that Mitch died in the van crash and stays dead, 'cause you can only have so many villains mucking about at once, and I hated my energy-manipulating OC anyhow. Not that I like Samuel and Danko either... But perhaps Peter can find a use for Mitch's ability (hint, hint). What do you guys think? Send me your thoughts, as they might influence what course the story takes.**


	6. Handle This

**I went on a major romance kick here, I admit it, so this chapter's purely one for the Peter/Bella shippers, and for the people who like Twilight-style narration from Bella's viewpoint. Enjoy it, because the next chap will be about Edward and Sylar - needless to say, no romance there. **

Chapter 6: Handle This

_BPOV_

I couldn't believe it. I'd been _so sure_ that something awful had happened, that I would never see Peter again, yet here he was, alive and perfectly unharmed as far as I could tell. My first reaction was to think I must be seeing things. Last night had been the most terrifying of my life; what if the pain and fear had been too much for me and my mind had finally snapped? It could happen. Really, I wouldn't be surprised if I woke up in a mental institution one of these days.

My second reaction, once I was (almost) certain I hadn't gone completely insane, was relief so overpowering that I actually felt lightheaded for a moment. I didn't faint, though. That was good - now that I knew Peter was really, truly here, it would have been a shame to waste time being unconscious.

I was already in his arms when I remembered that he had drugged me, and then he had _left me_. I should be mad at him. I opened my mouth and said his name, but my voice hardly sounded angry - more like pitiful and slightly whiny.

"What is it, Bella?"

Claire popped up on my other side. "Are you okay? Have you been hurt?"

She reached for my hand instinctively; I pulled back. "No, I-I'm fine...physically."

"Of course she is," Elle snapped. "You and Peter look physically fine too, so care to explain where the hell you've been?"

Even though it wasn't aimed at me, I cringed at the snap in her voice. Why couldn't _I_ ever manage to sound like that?

"Hey, we just so happen to have perfectly valid reasons for being late," Claire retorted, equally snappishly.

"Let's hear 'em, then."

Claire, with some help from Peter, launched into a story involving black-clad commandos, kidnap, and an energy-manipulating psychopath named Mitch, who was both a general and a collaborator in Arthur Petrelli's insane plan to mass produce his formula and make special abilities available to the general public. It all sounded like a _very_ tall tale, except...well...this was our life. Unbelievable things happened to us on almost a daily basis. Plus, Claire's story explained why Arthur had been developing the formula for military use, months ago when he'd tested it on me - the idea would have had to be introduced by _someone_. Someone crazy enough to think it would work.

Because that someone had won support for Arthur's vision in the government (exactly how far up that support went, none of us knew), it was generally agreed that we were going to have to run - relocate someplace where nobody knew us, change our identities, even. It was daunting, knowing that we were fugitives now. Yet somehow I couldn't bring myself to feel very daunted. Wherever we went next, whatever names we put on our driver's licenses, none of it seemed to matter. It wasn't like I'd be leaving anything behind; Charlie was gone, and nothing was left of my home except a burned-out ruin and ashes.

Then Claire wanted to know what we were going to do about my mother, and Peter decided it would be safest for Renee if she thought I had died in the fire along with Charlie. Fresh pain stabbed my heart once the full implication of his words sank in - that from now on, I would be officially dead to Renee and Phil. It wasn't a huge shock, though. I had always known that my mom, however much I loved her, would never be able to handle the truth about my friends...about me. I saw now, with terrible clarity, that from the first day I discovered my ability and made the choice to explore the possibilities it offered me, a slow but inevitable uncoupling had begun between me and my parents.

Maybe it went back even further than that - back to the moment I had first considered becoming a vampire so I could spend eternity with the Cullens. That future, if it had ever been within my grasp, would also have taken me away from Charlie and Renee. I would have left them if they were safer without me. Looking back, I realized I should have left at the beginning of summer, after Arthur kidnapped me; I should have realized we weren't rid of him so easily, or that someone else like him would come along eventually. If I had only been a little smarter, a little more realistic about how dangerous the world was for super-freaks like us, Charlie would still be alive.

So when Peter told me I had to let Renee think I was dead, I just nodded dumbly. My utter lack of protest concerned him. "Bella, say something. Are you okay?"

I worked my mouth to produce some saliva and swallowed - my throat was dry and sandpapery from all the sobbing I had done last night. "No, I'm not. But I will be." Maybe if I said the words enough I could will them to be true. I tried to force a smile for him, but my facial muscles felt rusted into place.

Claire squeezed my hand, passing more than body heat between us; at her touch, my throat and eyes stopped burning. I was sure that my eyes had just become less puffy and bloodshot too, though I couldn't verify this since there was no mirror.

"So where do we go from here?" Elle demanded, impatiently drumming her fingers on the wall. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm not exactly having the time of my life in this dump."

Peter gave it a moment's thought before asking, "Claire, have you talked to Noah lately?"

"Not since I walked out on him and went back to Forks. Why? Are we dropping in on him?"

"He managed to keep you hidden from the Company for most of your life - he seems like a good guy to ask for advice before going on the run."

"He could absolutely hook us up with some fake IDs. All right, we'll go see him, but if Angela shows up to try and take me into protective custody again..."

"I'll take care of her." Elle held up a hand, lightning arcing between her fingers and gathering into a glowing nucleus in her palm, leaving little doubt what she meant.

###

Paying Noah Bennet a visit seemed like a good plan; getting there turned out to be the problem. We didn't have much in the way of material belongings - just clothing, and we didn't even have a lot of that - but it, along with me, Claire, and Elle, was still more than Peter could teleport. Then there was the matter of Claire's car. She wanted to keep it, and Peter let her - over Elle's objections.

"Nobody ever let _me_ have a car when I was her age," she complained. "But of course the precious cheerleader always has to get her way. I just hope the inside of that car's comfortable, since it looks like we're _driving_ to California. And I hope you don't mind that your niece is a spoiled brat." With that she flounced out of the motel room, pausing only to tug - none too gently - on Claire's ponytail.

###

"You know," I said when we were finally alone that night, having gotten another room a couple doors down from the one Claire and Elle now shared, "Elle may have a point."

"Hey, I wasn't even around for Claire's formative years," Peter said a little defensively. "If she's spoiled, I had nothing to do with making her that way."

I rolled my eyes. "Not about Claire, about the car. Do you really think we can road-trip all the way to Costa Verde in that thing? Shouldn't we have like a van or something?"

"I guess we'll find out."

A sudden wave of irritation, almost anger, swept over me. "You're being awfully blasé about this."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we're being hunted, and homeless unless you count the car, since I guess we have to live out of it for the foreseeable future!" I sat down hard, making the bed creak, and kneaded my temples with my fingertips. "This is not how I had envisioned my life going when the career counselor asked where I saw myself after high school."

Peter took a seat beside me, wrapped his arm around me, put his hands over mine and pulled them away from my face. I sighed and purposefully relaxed, my body melting into his embrace, my mind calming as I let him make me feel safe again.

"Me either." He leaned in close so that his breath tickled my ear, sending a shiver down my spine.

Suddenly it was absolutely necessary that he keep talking. "What were your plans when you were my age?"

"I wanted to be a nurse - argued about it with Arthur till we were both blue in the face, too. You should've heard the fighting...but I'm glad you didn't."

"Mmm," I agreed. "Family dysfunction aside, do you miss those days?"

"Life was easier then. Hell, life was easier when all I had to worry about was getting killed trying to save a cheerleader."

"_That_ was easy?"

"At least I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it - save the cheerleader, save the world. Then Sylar attacked another girl, and _she_ was a total mystery. Sometimes she still is."

"Right," I mumbled, fighting to keep my thoughts straight as Peter kissed my neck. "If we ever see Sylar again, remind me to thank him."

Peter pulled away, drawing a whimper of protest from me, and turned me so he could look into my eyes. "You really mean that?"

"Was it worth getting my forehead sliced to meet you and Claire? Of course it was. It's worth everything, never forget that. Don't ever think I'd be better off without you." I tangled my fingers in his hair and leaned in for the kiss.

He held me back. "Is it worth having to run for your life just to be with me? Worth _Arthur_? Be honest."

"Okay, you want honesty... Just thinking about your father petrifies me, and after last night I feel the worst I've ever felt in my life. It's my fault Charlie died-"

"It's Arthur's fault, nobody else's," Peter interrupted. "Not yours, for sure."

"Thank you for saying that, but we both know it isn't true. Remember when we blew up Pinehearst and I decided Charlie should know we were together when we went back to Forks? You asked me then if I thought I should tell him _everything_ about us, and I chose not to. I purposefully left Charlie in the dark...left him vulnerable. I'd just had a real-life lesson in how dangerous our world could be, and I never warned him, I didn't protect him!" My eyes were wet now; I didn't know if I was crying because of grief or anger at myself.

A single tear escaped my lashes and was wiped away as Peter's thumb brushed over my cheekbone. "I know you loved your dad; he knew it too. He was lucky to have you."

"_I_ was lucky to have _him_," I corrected. "I wasn't exactly a perfect daughter, always keeping secrets practically the whole time I lived with him. Mostly secrets about the guys in my life. But it wasn't because I didn't care. I thought it was best for him." I blurted this out in a rush, feeling a desperate need to justify my actions - anything to try and ease the crushing guilt in my chest.

"I know you did."

When our lips met, part of me couldn't understand how he could still want to kiss me after I'd gotten Charlie killed. But I needed him so much that it was almost easy to ignore that smaller, guilty part of me that told me I didn't deserve comfort and acceptance from anyone, much less my hero - because Peter _was_ mine, undeserved or not.

Before I knew it our shirts were gone, disintegrated accidentally or maybe on purpose as we kissed and touched. It was the rough, almost scratchy feel of the cheap-motel sheets on the bare skin of my back that brought me down to earth.

"Wait, wait - stop. We can't do this."

Peter froze, then raised his head from my chest so he could make eye contact with me. "Why not? This place not up to your standards?"

"It's not that. Remember the drugs, Peter? And the _needle_? I seem to recall saying at lunch-" If you could call a fast food drive-in pit-stop 'lunch' "-that you aren't getting lucky with me for at least a week after that little stunt." I fixed him with my best stern frown.

"And you pick now to remember that? I said I was sorry, and I am, but still..."

"I know, I'm being beyond mean - but I'm not trying to be. We can't do this now because I lost all my stuff when Charlie's house burned down. I haven't got any pills to take after, and this isn't a great time to be reckless."

Peter was obviously disappointed but immediately put the brakes on the foreplay, as I knew he would. He never pressured me. "Okay, no recklessness. We can do the other thing instead," he suggested.

Knowing instantly what he meant, I felt my breath catch. Thanks to our powers - or rather, a particular one of _Peter's_ powers - sex wasn't our only way of getting close. We had another method of doing that - one which was both highly unconventional and arguably even more intimate - whenever I allowed it. Which I was _not_ inclined to do at the moment. I sat up and scooted to the opposite side of the bed from Peter with a huffy sigh. "On second thought, I'd rather take a chance on you knocking me up."

"You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do! This is a really bad time for me, Peter; I'm not up to sharing just now."

Peter closed the distance between us and took me by the shoulders, his fingers digging lightly into my skin, just enough that I could feel the squeeze but not hard enough to bruise. "That's exactly why you need to - you shouldn't have to deal alone. Don't shut me out, Bella."

I groaned in self-directed aggravation - he always did know how to slip through the cracks in my armor. "Fine...but I'm warning you, you won't like what you see. This'll hurt you more than it hurt me," I whispered.

Quickly, before I could chicken out, I crawled onto Peter's lap, gripped his shoulders with both hands to steady myself, pressed my forehead against his, and ripped down my mental shield. He entered my mind swiftly, making me reel from the force of the invasion - even after all this time, no matter how completely I trusted Peter, any telepath probing inside my head still made me uncomfortable.

Peter didn't have to probe for long, though - the memory he wanted to see hadn't been far from the front of my mind all day. The next moments were excruciating as I relived my worst enemy's reappearance, Charlie's gruesome demise, and my equally gory fight with Arthur in lurid detail.

I was crying again (_How do I have any tears left? _I wondered. _I must be dehydrating myself by crying so much._) by the time my hideously vivid memory finished replaying, but I could see in Peter's eyes, which had gone dark and distant, that it had had a worse effect on him than on me. Predictable - I knew seeing what Arthur had done would hurt him.

"It's not your fault, you know," I reassured him in a hushed almost-whisper. "Being his son doesn't make you responsible for the things he does."

"I know that," Peter said flatly.

"Then believe it." My voice was louder and sharper this time. "I don't blame you; don't blame yourself."

Peter rewarded me with a brief grin. "I won't if you don't. Deal?" Then, more seriously: "I'd do anything to take it back, Bella. You know that, right? I'd get Claire to-"

"Except it wouldn't do any good," I finished for him. "The...body...would have burned up in the fire. I don't think even Claire could bring a pile of ashes back to life." I gulped, a little shocked that I had said something so callous. But only a little. I was too emotionally used-up to feel more.

"Claire isn't the only option, though," Peter said slowly. "If Arthur didn't get a chance to burn the body..."

My head snapped up. "You're talking about time travel." He nodded yes. "But you've always told me altering the past is dangerous. Future You did it when he saved me from becoming a vampire, but from what I heard, nothing he did could make his world much worse than it already was."

"It's true - time travel _is_ risky, not to mention unethical if you're only doing it for one person."

"Then why bring it up at all?"

"Because you're smart, Bella. Too smart not to think of it on your own."

"And then you'd shoot the idea down." Peter didn't reply - not out loud, anyway. Instead, his eyes said everything. "You wouldn't?" I asked, stunned.

"I don't know," he admitted after a momentary pause to think it over. "If you asked... I don't know what I'd do. Seeing you in so much pain _hurts_, Bella."

Inside my chest, my heart clenched so hard it was almost painful. Peter might not be the most romantic guy on the planet, but he had his moments. "I won't ask you to risk screwing up our whole timeline just for me. If you really want to help, then just hold me. Just be here. That's all I need from you."


	7. The Strange Tale of Mr Gray

**Here's something amazing: an Edward chapter that doesn't make you want to slit your wrists. I didn't know it could be done until I did it! (Though it's more of a Sylar chapter with some Edward at the end; does that still count?)**

Chapter 7: The Strange Tale of Mr. Gray

_Gabriel Gray - somewhere in the Amazon_

_Seven months ago_

The first thing he noticed was the humidity. Really, the air here had to be at least eighty percent uncondensed moisture, and he was dressed quite inappropriately in a long-sleeved sweater and jacket. Those had to go. He kept his undershirt, even though it was already soaked through with sweat - he didn't want to be running around half naked.

Once he had removed a couple layers of clothing and no longer felt like he was in imminent danger of heatstroke, he took a look around and realized he had no clue where he was. The plant life - and certainly the climate - seemed right for a rainforest, but which one? And how had he, Gabriel Gray, a watchmaker from Queens, come to be here?

He searched his memory, and was alarmed to find it pretty foggy. His last really clear memory was of coming home, checking his answering machine, and listening to a message from some guy with a foreign accent and a strange name he couldn't quite remember. Suri? No, that was the name of some famous actor's daughter. Whatever his name was, whatever that message had been about, Gabriel could only assume it had something to do with his current predicament.

"Hello? Whoever you are, this has been a real funny joke, but I wanna go home now!" His shout seemed oddly muffled by the huge trees and dense green growth that felt like it was pressing in on him from all sides. It was kind of spooky.

After waiting and listening hard for a long moment, he decided that there must not be anyone nearby; whoever had dumped him here was obviously long gone. He was on his own. He started walking.

###

Hours later, he saw no sign that he'd come any closer to getting out of the seemingly endless rainforest. _Damn, I thought a lot of these were supposed to have been chopped down. There's still plenty of forest as far as I can tell. _ He took a moment to rest, sitting down on a log overgrown with damp, squishy green stuff and wiping his face with the sweater he now wore tied around his waist.

As he sat there, it slowly dawned on him that he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. His stomach, which had gone unnoticed since his mysterious arrival in the middle of nowhere, chose that moment to growl loudly. "Well, this is just great."

He spoke aloud just for the sake of hearing a human voice, even his own. The desertedness of this place was overwhelming. Gabriel Gray had been something of a loner his whole life, but for the first time he felt loneliness as an actual pain in his gut, though maybe that was just the hunger pangs. He didn't think so. There was, he realized, a very real possibility that he would die alone in this place, and the thought terrified him. "Isn't there anybody else here!"

No one answered but, amazingly, he got a sudden feeling of not being as alone as he'd thought he was. His initial reaction was relief, even pleasure...and yet, there was something underneath those feelings, a certain inexplicable prickling chill that made the hairs on his arms stand up, that told him that the new arrival, whoever he, she, or they might be, was not necessarily desirable. He stood up, all his senses stretched to their limits.

His ears picked up footsteps from three different people, the sound so loud and clear to him that he was able to pinpoint their locations instantly. They were all coming at him from different directions, forming a perfect triangle with him at the center and closing in on him. Almost like he was being hunted. Gabriel felt himself break out in a cold sweat - it looked like he wouldn't have to worry about dying of starvation after all. Of course it would be just his luck to end up in the hunting grounds of some crazy tribe of cannibals who probably kept collections of shrunken heads.

Suddenly the footsteps stopped just far enough away that the hunters were still concealed in the foliage, but close enough to cut off any possible escape. Gabriel tensed, waiting for a second that lasted forever...and then a dark figure sprang at him, fingers curved like a jungle cat's claws.

The predator tackled him to the ground, giving Gabriel a momentary but good look at his - no, _her_ - face. It was a face like no other he'd ever seen before, dark-skinned and sharp-boned, framed by hundreds of long black braids which were wrapped once around a white, highly polished something - it looked like an animal bone, though Gabriel couldn't be sure - at the back of the female's head and then allowed to tumble freely over her shoulders.

What really transfixed him, though, were her eyes. Her irises were mostly black except for a faint red ring around the pupils, and before Gabriel's conscious mind could begin to process the fact that _this woman had red eyes_, his intuition screamed at him that those eyes were not human. Nothing about this woman was human.

She opened her mouth, exposing two rows of gleaming, sharp-looking teeth, and something inside Gabriel snapped. He didn't know how he knew - none of this made anything even remotely resembling sense - but he _knew_ she intended to bite him, to eat him alive right here and now. _"NO!"_ Gabriel yelled, so loud he would have thought his throat would tear if he'd been capable of thinking at that moment, and something amazing happened. His yell turned into sonic waves powerful enough to create visible ripples in the air, blasting the woman backward. She slammed into a tree trunk that had to be at least ten feet in diameter, which shattered on impact.

Gabriel realized there was something wrong with this picture, because one woman's body should not be able to break such a huge tree; he had no time to muse on it, however. Hissing like angry feral cats, two more women who could have been the first one's identical triplets exploded out of the fauna. Gabriel threw up his hands in what was sure to be a futile attempt at shielding himself - and, incredibly, they were hurled away from him by some invisible force. "What the...?"

The three women got back on their feet impossibly fast, yet none of them seemed particularly eager to come within two yards of Gabriel again. Instead they gathered around him at a safe distance, keeping him boxed in, and sniffed the air warily, like wild animals that had caught a strange new scent and were cautiously investigating its source.

Gabriel raised his hands to chest height, palms out, and tried to make himself appear unthreatening. "Look, I don't want any trouble. Just let me leave, okay? I'm sorry I stumbled into your stomping grounds. I won't bother you anymore. I'll just go, okay?"

Six wide red-black eyes stared unblinkingly at him, the inhumanly beautiful faces in which they were set giving no hint as to what their owners were thinking. Finally Female Number One, the one who had first pounced Gabriel, took a step toward him. Her movements had an unnerving predatory grace, though the way she froze herself into a statue after that single step was even more disturbing. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and husky. "You have a strange power. It is like nothing we have ever seen in your kind, in all our many years. What are you, human?"

Gabriel misinterpreted her words as "What are you? Human?" and bristled. "Of course I'm human," he snapped. "What else would I be? What the hell are _you_? What kind of people have red rings around the pupils of their eyes and teeth like yours, huh?"

Number One's eyes darted over Gabriel's head to Two and Three; he got an eerie feeling that they could hold an entire conversation in that brief glance. Then One refocused on him, a new resolution in her creepy eyes. "I am Zafrina. These are my sisters, Senna and Kachiri." She nodded at Two and Three, respectively.

"Gabriel Gray." He offered his hand.

Zafrina stared at him with a mixture of surprise, curiosity, and amusement but declined to shake hands. Gabriel knew intuitively that if she didn't want to neither of her sisters would either; Zafrina was the leader of their odd little trio. Actually they weren't really a trio - they were more like three limbs of a single organism. It didn't surprise Gabriel at all that Zafrina always said 'we', never 'I'. "We have decided that whatever power is in your blood may be dangerous. If you will agree to leave immediately, we will allow you to pass unharmed."

It was as good a deal as he was likely to get, Gabriel realized. "Thanks...but I don't really know which way to go. If you could just point me in the right direction...?"

Zafrina exchanged another look that was really an entire nonverbal conversation with Kachiri and Senna, then nodded briskly. Quicker than his eyes could follow, her hand flashed up to his shoulder and she effortlessly spun him around to face southwest. "Walk that way. There is no path, so make sure to always go straight, Gabriel Gray. You will find a village. There you will be able to arrange transportation back to your home. And, Gabriel Gray? Never return to this place."

"I won't - that's a promise." _Whoever put me here, if they want to do it again they're gonna have one hell of a fight on their hands._

###

Following Zafrina's advice, Gabriel did indeed reach a village - a rather primitive one, admittedly, but he was at least able to get access to a telephone and contact the nearest American embassy. Even after he'd done that, getting home proved to be an extreme hassle thanks to his lack of a passport and inability to explain how he had ended up lost in the Amazon in the first place. Nevertheless, he managed to get back to America in a couple of months.

The first place he went after his return was Queens, New York, which had been his home all his life. Except it no longer felt like home. His mother, he found out when he stopped by her place, was dead - stabbed in the chest with a pair of scissors right in her own living room, the lady next door told him. Despite the best efforts of the police, Virginia Gray's murderer had never been caught and probably never would be, since the crime had occurred over a year ago.

Gabriel left feeling more lost than ever. A year... His mother had been dead for more than a _year_ and he hadn't even known. _Or did I...? _

When he stopped to think about it, he was able to conjure up a vague picture of Virginia...Virginia Gray and her precious snowglobe collection...the scissors buried in her chest and a painting on the floor, done in her blood...

Horrified by the image, Gabriel forced it from his mind. It had the quality of a long-buried memory; if that was what it was, that meant he had witnessed his mother's death. If he had, then it logically followed that he should know the identity of her murderer, but his mind shied violently away from the knowledge. Maybe, he reasoned, his mother's killer was the same person who had somehow transported him to the Amazon. Maybe he had tracked them down, and they'd wanted him out of the way... That didn't explain why he had been left alive, though.

Unable to make any kind of sense of the whole situation, Gabriel decided to put it out of his mind. Something - some powerful impulse that originated inside his own mind yet somehow seemed not to belong to him completely - was telling him to just forget about the strange recent events in his life and go back to his old job as a watchmaker. Repairing watches was a safe, normal occupation; after his unplanned 'vacation', safety and normality were quite appealing.

There was nothing left for him in Queens, so Gabriel decided to leave New York City altogether. He relocated to Binghamton, opened a new timepiece shop, and there he'd stayed ever since. Still, he sometimes got a feeling of incompleteness, as if he was meant to be somewhere else...supposed to be _doing_ something else. The feeling always vanished before he could put his finger on precisely what he _was_ meant to be doing, but it never really went away.

_Present day_

His tale finally at an end, Gabriel drained half his glass of water in a single gulp - all that talking had dried his throat out - and glanced across the table of the Waffle House booth in which he sat to gauge his companion's reaction.

The other guy, a teenager named Edward Cullen who behaved like no other teenager Gabriel had ever met, had sat perfectly still the whole time Gabriel talked, but it was obvious he had listened to every word. His odd golden eyes hadn't strayed from Gabriel's face once; in fact, Gabriel would have bet good money that Edward hadn't even blinked, though he hadn't maintained constant eye contact with him - those eyes were a little unsettling.

"You think I'm crazy," Gabriel said flatly. He wouldn't be surprised if that were the case; the thought had crossed his own mind too often for him to blame anyone else for thinking it.

"You, crazy?" Edward sounded genuinely taken aback by the idea, then chuckled wryly. "Trust me, compared to...other people I know _very_ well...you seem perfectly sane to me."

"But waking up in the Amazon rainforest missing a chunk of my memory sounds like something out of the _National Enquirer_."

"I've heard stranger," Edward assured him. "I believe you...but your story, intriguing as it is, doesn't explain why you fixed my watch for free - or how you even knew it was running fast. I wore it for months without noticing that, and I've always considered myself to be highly perceptive."

"I don't know how I noticed; I've just always had kind of a knack for understanding how these things work. And this..." Gabriel reached out and picked up the watch in question. "This name on the watch, Sylar - it means something important. I just wish I knew _what_..."

"Do you really think this brand name has some connection to your mother's murder and your amnesia?" Edward sounded skeptical.

Frustrated, Gabriel smacked the tabletop with his open palm. "I don't know! All I have to go on are these weird feelings I sometimes get that my life isn't what it should be, that there's something I'm missing-" He broke off as a peculiar, almost pained expression appeared on Edward's face. "What?"

"Nothing," he said too quickly. "I just...know the feeling."

"Is that your reason for being in therapy too?" Gabriel was instantly ashamed of his nosiness. "I'm sorry, I know that's none of my business."

"It's fine. My entire family - and I have a large family - have made my personal affairs their business for more than a year; it's rather like living under a microscope. Privacy is nothing more than a distant memory for me. To answer your question, I was sent to therapy after I tried to kill myself, which I did because there _is_ something missing from my life - something I can't live without. I don't seem to have a choice, though; my family is determined to keep me with them, and they're relentless." Edward said all this very matter-of-factly, only allowing a slight bitterness to color his tone at the end. He clearly resented his family for foiling his suicide attempt.

Gabriel was stunned. "Why? What could be bad enough to kill yourself over?"

"I don't want to talk about that. I should go now."

"Sure. Okay. It was nice meeting you." Gabriel got up and started to leave, only to turn back when Edward spoke again.

"Perhaps, if you aren't too busy, we could meet again sometime?"

###

Later that evening, when he was re-ensconced in his room - his 'Fortress of Solitude', as Emmett had begun calling it, much to Edward's annoyance - Edward wondered what had possessed him to ask Gabriel Gray if they could meet again. Last time he had entangled his life with a human's, it had ended in heartbreak and tragedy, so why on earth would he even set a foot down that road again? _Will I never learn from my mistakes? What is wrong with me?_

He knew he wasn't acting out of simple loneliness; there were six other vampires in the house at that very moment who would be only too happy to keep Edward company if he would let them. But he didn't want their company, because none of them understood how he felt. Not even Alice, who had also loved and lost Bella Swan; she still had Jasper, after all. She didn't feel Bella's loss so acutely that it was like losing a part of her very _self_, so she couldn't relate.

Gabriel could. _Judging by what went through his mind today, he feels just as lost as I do, though he handles it better. Perhaps I could learn a thing or two from him about moving on and leaving the past behind...or maybe misery just loves company too much. _

That wasn't Edward's only reason for wanting to get better acquainted with Mr. Gray, however. There was also the very interesting fact that the man had encountered a vampire coven in the Amazon - while they were on the hunt, no less! - and somehow survived. Edward had seen a playback of the incident in Gabriel's thoughts, and it had caught his interest in a way nothing had since his departure from Forks.

It appeared that Gabriel had fended off the attacking vampires using some form of psychokinesis, which Edward readily accepted - there were plenty of vampires with abilities like that. A human with that kind of power, on the other hand, was unheard of. How had Gabriel done it? Could he do it again?

Edward intended to find out.

**For those of you who haven't read Reprise, or just haven't read it in a long time and are now wondering what the heck is up with Sylar: after he attacked Bella waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the beginning of Resurgence, Peter finally got fed up with him appearing everywhere and erased his memories before teleporting him to the Amazon, so now he's back in his Gabriel Gray persona and everything he did as Sylar is a repressed memory locked away in his mind. **

** As for why the Amazonian coven let him go but made him leave their territory, it's because even vampires recognize that he can be one dangerous individual - except Edward, because he hasn't been all there since he learned of Bella's supposed 'death'. Raise your right hand if you feel sorry for Edward. Raise your left hand if you think he deserves to suffer for leaving Bella. **

** Next chapter will be more of Edward and Gabriel, possibly with a little Arthur and a surprise guest thrown into the mix. **


	8. Vampires & Villains

**Warning: this chapter contains randomness, character death at the end, and Arthur. Oh, and Edward quits moping around his room and makes a plan that will bring him closer to finding Bella! **

Chapter 8: Vampires & Villains

_The Cullen house - three days later_

_Knock, knock, Edward, I'm coming in. _Alice very considerately gave him a half-second's warning before entering his Fortress of Solitude. "Ew, you really need to clean your room. Even with Esme tidying it up whenever you go out - which is still practically never - it's starting to get a little disgusting in here." She ran a finger over one of the shelves that held part of Edward's massive CD collection, then stuck her fingertip under his nose. "Look, it's actually dusty!"

He pushed her hand away. "Thank you for your assessment of my housekeeping skills, Alice. Now could you please say whatever you came in to say and be done with it? I need to leave for an appointment with that therapist within five minutes...unless you've decided I don't have to go anymore," he added hopefully.

"Nice try, Edward. You're going, although I've gotta say I'm a little jealous. Promise not to forget your family while you're hanging out with your cool new friend?"

"His name is Gabriel." Slight disbelief colored Edward's tone - 'cool' wasn't exactly the first word he would pick to describe the watchmaker. "And I wouldn't say he's my friend. He's more of a...project of mine."

Alice sighed. "Humans don't make good pet projects, Edward. Didn't you learn that from what happened to...her?" _Bella. _

"Don't say her name!" Edward snapped. "Don't even think about her. I try not to; is it too much to ask you not to force her into my mind? ...Any more than she already is? Please?"

"I'm sorry, Edward. Really. But you aren't the only one who misses her, you know." _She was my friend too. You were the one who made us leave her. _

"I know that, Alice. Believe me, there is nothing you can say that I haven't already told myself. You cannot possibly blame me more than I blame myself."

She held up her hands as if asking for a timeout. "I don't mean to blame you, Edward, and I wish you could quit blaming yourself and move on. I'd hoped that therapist could help you do that, but it doesn't seem to be working - and now we're back to the guy you met at the shrink's office. Explain to me why you suddenly want to associate with this human, please."

"I don't know if I can."

Alice pursed her lips, displeased. "Fair enough. Your life, your business-"

_-Except when I want to end it. Then it's everyone's business, _Edward thought bitterly.

Alice reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a slip of paper on which she had written an address. "This is where you're meeting Gabriel. I haven't shared this with any of the others because I doubt they'd approve, but personally I think it's great that you've made a new friend - you need to spend more time around people." _Just be careful, okay?_

###

Following Alice's directions, Edward arrived at a small clock repair shop. _So this is where Gabriel spends most of his time, huh? _The sign on the front door said the shop was closed, but said door was unlocked, so Edward pushed it open and went inside. The shop's interior was cool and dark and reminded him of his Fortress back home...or of a bat-cave. He found the familiar gloom comforting.

"Hello?" There was no answer, so Edward sent out a telepathic probe which connected with a mind he thought probably belonged to Gabriel. The watchmaker appeared to be hard at work, all his thoughts fixed on the tiny pieces of metal that made up the guts of a clock, the intricate design formed when they all fit together just right...

Edward followed the clockwork-centric thoughts to their source, and found Gabriel hunched over a worktable in another, equally dim room where the only light came from a small desk lamp positioned directly over the disassembled clock he was working on. Edward watched the human work for a moment, then slipped silently up behind him. "Did you know you forgot to lock your door?"

Gabriel let out a startled yelp, and Edward suddenly found himself hurled across the room and pinned to the wall by an invisible force. _Well, I suppose this answers my questions about how he avoided becoming a meal for Zafrina and her sisters. His story of fighting them off telekinetically was accurate after all. Amazing! _

_Oh crap!_ Gabriel took several deep breaths, forcing himself to relax and release his hold on Edward. "I am so sorry about that. Are you all right?"

Edward landed gracefully and got back on his feet before Gabriel, who hurried over to help him up, had even reached him. "I'm fine. Is this how you greet everyone who walks in here?"

Gabriel stared. "Only the ones who sneak up on me. You're awfully calm considering I just threw you against a wall with my mind."

"So are you, considering that you just demonstrated an ability most people doubt even exists...just like you did when those women attacked you in the Amazon. I'm guessing it's happened more than once since you returned to America. Am I right, Mr. Gray?"

Gabriel backed away until he hit his table, and looked like he wouldn't mind putting the piece of furniture between himself and Edward. "Who are you? What do you want?" After a moment's pause he added, "Are you different like me?"

"Well, not exactly like you..."

_Edward & Gabriel - the Waffle House_

_Next afternoon_

"So, I keep wondering, how does your mind reading thing work?"

"Honestly? It's a real headache, hearing the thoughts of everyone around me and having no way to shut them out."

"Couldn't you learn to close your mind or something?"

"I've tried." A hint of frustration came across in Edward's terse tone - he had been trying to shut out or, failing that, ignore the voices in his head for longer than his new friend had been alive.

"Well, my control isn't perfect either," Gabriel said in an obvious attempt to lighten the mood.

_Yes, but you're only human - perfection almost always eludes your kind. What's my excuse?_

"And your family, the ones who have their eyes on you all the time - they've gotta know what you can do, right?"

"Naturally; abilities like ours aren't easy to keep under wraps." _In fact, I'm amazed no one else seems to know about you. _"You must have told someone, at some time."

"Like who? I haven't seen my father in years, and my mother's dead. Although...if I _had_ tried to let her in on my secret...I don't think she would have taken it well. I think I would have frightened her." Gabriel's eyes had gone glassy and distant, and Edward sensed a strange shift in his mind, as if something repressed was trying to break through. The moment passed before he could be certain - whatever might be buried in the depths of Gabriel's mind, it was going to stay hidden at least a while longer.

_Edward & Carlisle - Carlisle's study_

"A human with the power of telekinesis? Astounding. In all my centuries I never saw anything to suggest that humans could possess such an ability."

"Neither did I, but there's a geneticist from India who believes that the humans may actually be capable of much more than that - self-propelled flight, cryokinesis, telepathy, teleportation, rapid cellular regeneration... The possibilities are endless. You can read more about the theory in Dr. Suresh's book, if you like." Edward pulled the Barnes & Noble bag containing his new literary acquisition from his inside jacket pocket, where it had been stashed to protect it from the rain, and placed it on Carlisle's desk.

"Thank you, Edward." Carlisle picked up the book and flipped it open to the page where someone had stuck a store-issued bookmark, which happened to be in the chapter on regeneration.

_Is there a limit to how many times or to what extent the body's cells might regenerate? Certainly a person with this ability would be able to heal almost instantly from any injury, but if there is no limit, what else is possible? If a person can heal broken bones in minutes, it is not illogical to suppose that this person would also be capable of growing entirely new bones, muscle tissue, and skin if it were needed. Such a person would be practically immortal - might even be able to reanimate after death. _

Carlisle snapped the book shut, realizing that the bookmark hadn't landed there by coincidence.

"It all sounds quite fantastic, doesn't it?" Edward asked quietly.

"Yes, quite."

"There's also a chapter on possible methods of transferring abilities from one person to another," Edward said even more quietly.

Carlisle looked up sharply. "Edward... I'm afraid I don't need telepathy to know what you're thinking of right now, and it is my opinion that you should forget about it. There are too many _if_s to make it a workable idea; the odds of finding a person who can regenerate, and of you mastering the methods of transference, are astronomical. Besides, there must be a time limit, after which the deterioration in dead tissue would have advanced too far to be reversed. You can't bring her back, Edward."

"You don't know that."

"Then let us say I highly doubt it. Bella is gone, and I don't believe she would want you wasting your life chasing down impossible theories in a misguided attempt to hold onto her. She would want you to move on."

"I can't do that!"

"You must," Carlisle said sternly. "This matter is closed. Under no circumstances are you to go to Forks and disinter Bella's body for use in an experiment that probably wouldn't work anyway. To do so would be ghoulish and disrespectful. Do you understand me, son?"

"Yes, Carlisle."

_Arthur Petrelli - Building 26_

It had been a rotten week for Mr. Petrelli, mainly because it had begun with another failed attempt at capturing Claire and that whiny friend of hers. The part where a weak little klutz who could barely cross a room without tripping over her own feet and only had a single, inferior ability had beaten _him_ all by herself irritated him the most; the part where Peter had orchestrated a fiery car crash that'd killed Arthur's right hand man _and_ escaped with Claire ran a close second.

That was the day that Arthur had realized he was going to have to approach the task of bringing them down differently. Upon his return from Forks, Building 26, which had originally been set up to manufacture large amounts of the formula and distribute it to Arthur's hand-picked soldiers, underwent a few renovations and was now ready to serve a new purpose: containment and elimination of specially talented people. They called it 'a matter of national security' - neutralizing a threat that could potentially destroy the United States from within. _Whatever the boys at the Pentagon need to tell themselves so they can sleep at night, _Arthur thought derisively.

He knew his kind didn't really pose that big a threat to the country; ordinary people only thought so because they didn't understand, so of course they were afraid. It was just human nature. Arthur was happy to encourage their misconception because it suited his purposes. After all, why should incredible powers be given at random to weak, undeserving people like Adam Monroe, who had been a drunken degenerate before discovering his immortality, Flint and Knox, who were simple-minded street thugs, or Mitch Grande, who had been useful but happened to be a complete psychopath?

_He would have turned on me eventually - I should probably thank Peter for ridding me of him, _Arthur mused. _It won't be long before I see him again. _There was a special cell in Building 26, designed for absolute inescapability and tested by Arthur himself, with Peter's name on it.

Once he was out of the way, Arthur's plans would finally proceed. He would exterminate the unworthy masses, and from then on _he_ would control the evolution of the human species, decide who deserved powers, what ability they should get, maybe even tweak the formula to produce entirely new abilities - but he would always be the most powerful, of course. No one would have an ability he didn't have. _A new breed, created in my own image. _The thought brought a smile to his normally stern face.

"Mr. Petrelli, your three o'clock is here."

"Send him in. And don't come into my office without knocking again."

His assistant gulped. "Yes, sir."

A short moment later Arthur sat across from the man who would be his instrument in bringing his plans to fruition. He had tracked him down on Mitch's advice, and although finding him had taken months, if half of what Arthur had heard about the Hunter was true, it would be well worth it. "Have a seat, Mr. Danko. I've got the job of a lifetime for you." He then explained the situation very carefully.

Danko showed an initial hint of disbelief, but Arthur quickly brought him on board. "When do I start?"

"Tonight. This minute. The sooner the better. I think I know just the place to make our first move..."

_Jacksonville, FL_

_BPOV_

It was an incredibly dark night. I walked faster, almost running toward my destination. Why weren't any streetlights on? Surely they couldn't all have burned out. Thankfully I reached the house without stumbling in the dark.

I hesitated at the door, wondering if I was really going to go inside. I knew I shouldn't be here. Peter had explained at great length why this was a very bad idea, but I was able to shake off my doubts with little effort. He just didn't understand that I needed to do this...I needed to make sure...

The door swung open when I touched it - probably it had been left unlocked again. I stepped inside, confused when the house was just as dark as the street outside. It also smelled - horribly! I covered my nose, coughing, my eyes watering.

"Mom? Mom, what is that smell?" It would be just like Renee to take meat out of the fridge and then go off and leave it, but she had to have noticed the stench by now. _I wish she'd stuck with her vegan phase..._

I somehow found my way to the kitchen, then groped along the wall until I found the electric switch. I turned on the lights, and froze at what I saw. Renee lay on the kitchen floor, her chest cut neatly open and her heart torn out, just as Victoria had once done to me. Phil sat in his chair, his neck twisted so badly that his head was almost backward. Both of them appeared slightly shrunken, wasted, and their skin was tinged the blackish green of decay - they must have been dead for several days. Their half-eaten dinner was still on the table, rotting and attracting additional flies.

I dropped to the floor beside my mother's body with a shriek of horror and pain. "No! No, no, no! Why Mom? Why her and Phil? How?"

"Isn't it obvious? It had to be done."

I stiffened, then slowly turned. Arthur loomed over me, cold satisfaction written all over his face. "Why?" I choked out.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist checking in on your mother - it was just a simple matter of waiting here for you."

My eyes darted to the grotesque remains of the only family I had left, then back to Arthur. "They didn't have to die!"

"No, they didn't. I wouldn't have touched them if you hadn't run from me in Forks. No one would have been hurt if you didn't insist on putting the people you claim to love in danger by making me chase you across the country. Do you understand now, Miss Swan? I'll always find you, and the more you try to escape, the worse it'll be for everyone around you."

**Do you guys think I'm being too mean to Bella, having her friends and family dropping like flies? Should I stop killing people? Anyone you think I ****should**** kill?**

**In case I don't get around to updating before Christmas, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY! Or Happy Holidays, if you prefer. **


	9. Sleepless Beauty

**I hope everyone's enjoyed the two chapters dealing with the Edward/Sylar story arc; now I'm gonna write more about Bella & co., and this chapter is styled after Twilight, with lots of fluffy h/c, insight into what Bella's thinking, and some superpowers thrown in just for grins. Enjoy!**

Chapter 9: Sleepless Beauty

_BPOV_

As Arthur moved closer, mouth set in a determined line, hand already reaching out for me, I lunged to my feet, desperate to get away from him, to at least try no matter how futile it was - and someone much stronger grabbed me from behind, trapping me. "No! Let me go!" I struggled, clawing at the arms that held me while trying to wriggle free, elbow my captor in the gut, bite, _anything_, until-

"Bella, settle down! You'll wake everybody up!"

The fight left me instantly when I heard Peter's voice, but he kept a tight hold on me nonetheless as I reoriented myself. We were in another cheap hotel room; we'd been in dozens of them over the last few days, so many that my sense of time and place was starting to distort. I thought, though, that it had a little over a week since we left Forks, and that we were somewhere in southern Oregon. Most importantly, we were nowhere near Renee and Phil's house in Florida.

Sensing that I was calmer, Peter loosened his grip so as not to restrict my freedom of movement, but continued holding me. "Are you okay, Bella?"

"Maybe I should be asking you that."

Peter briefly inspected the deep but rapidly fading scratches I had left on his forearm. "I think I'll live. Don't sweat it."

"But I hurt you! You do still feel pain, don't you?"

"Sure, I feel pain - I don't know of anyone other than Claire who doesn't. Tell me you aren't thinking you should share a room with her instead."

I tried to make myself laugh, though it came out as more of a snort. "No, that wouldn't work. By now Claire would've duct-taped me to my side of the bed and put some more tape over my mouth." Besides, if I bunked with Claire, that would leave Peter with Elle. So what if her crush on him was supposed to be ancient history? So what if he'd never returned her feelings? That didn't mean I wanted them spending the night together.

"Claire wouldn't do that. She loves you too, you know; we all do. Even Elle loves you - I don't know how you do it."

I sighed, oddly uncomforted. Yes, I knew Claire and Elle loved me, but still... "...Not enough to ask them to put up with my nightmares. Heck, I wouldn't blame you if _you_ decided you don't want me screaming in your ear every night. You can't honestly expect me to believe you enjoy it."

"About as much as you do." Peter squeezed my shoulder. "But I can't blame you for being scared after what you saw Arthur do to your dad."

Just thinking about that night sent a tremor through my body; no, I couldn't deny that I was far from recovered. Elle had suggested that maybe I was suffering from post-traumatic stress - she claimed to know the symptoms because apparently a couple of Primatech agents had once 'flipped out' after an especially harrowing mission. When I asked what had happened to them, she said she'd heard that they ended up in padded cells and straitjackets, which was not exactly reassuring. The sad part? I really did think she was trying to be helpful.

Peter's offer to stay up with me if I needed to talk was slightly more helpful, but after checking the time I told him we should try to grab another couple hours' sleep, as tomorrow would be another long day on the road, and it would be very bad if we weren't up to taking our turns driving. He agreed with me, and we curled up together; I pressed my body so tightly against his that there wasn't a spare inch of space left between us. Then I closed my eyes and made an effort to at least look like I didn't dread falling asleep with every fiber of my being.

"Hey, Bella?"

My eyes shot open, and I couldn't hold back a small sigh of relief. "What is it, Peter?"

His fingers played restlessly over the skin of my upper arm; although my face was turned to the wall, away from him, I would bet the rest of our meager travel fund that he was wearing his 'I'm thinking about something serious' frown. "This nightmare of yours... It wasn't by any chance about going to Florida and finding Renee and Phil dead, was it?"

I pulled away slightly, a kneejerk reaction. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Because I saw the same thing right before I woke you up."

"Oh God. It wasn't...one of your precognitive dreams? We've gotta warn Renee and Phil! I thought you said they'd be okay as long as I stayed away from them-"

"They're fine," Peter interrupted. "It wasn't a vision, just something I picked up from you telepathically, which wouldn't be a problem except that I shouldn't be able to do it."

"You...read...my mind?" This was _so_ not good.

"It was more like you broadcasted it to me."

Scratch that, this was downright terrible. The night Elle took me away from Forks, I had shielded her and myself after the sedative Peter had given me wore off, just in case Arthur had added clairvoyance to his arsenal of stolen powers or had someone else with that ability working for him. When Peter and Claire hooked up with us I had started shielding them too, and more or less kept it up since then. If my shield was wearing thin, we could all be in danger - well, _more_ danger.

As if he knew what I was thinking - and not because of reading my mind; he just knew me _that_ well - Peter said, "You know, you could probably stop shielding Elle - Arthur doesn't know she's with us. And I can take care of myself. You don't need to worry about everybody."

"Okay. Less pressure would be nice. Now go to sleep."

He gave me a momentary hard stare, obviously suspicious of my lack of argument, before lying down and pulling me close. I made a show of falling asleep as well, but in actuality my mind was buzzing. Of course Peter wasn't really in need of my protection - he'd absorbed my ability the night we met, after all, and had quickly gotten good at shielding himself. It was just hard to overcome my protective instincts, which had been drilled into me over a lifetime of looking after Renee but were now unneeded. The people who comprised my new family unit were remarkably self-sufficient...

As I thought about them, my mind landed on Elle. Her father, like mine, had been murdered in an especially gruesome manner, his head cut open and his brain removed by Sylar - another power-stealing psycho like Arthur Petrelli. Elle hadn't actually been in the room to witness Bob Bishop's murder, as I had Charlie's, but still it must've traumatized her, seeing her father that way...and then she'd completely lost control of her power. Just like I must be doing, if Peter was telepathically reading my nightmares now.

I rolled over, tucked my head under Peter's chin and inhaled his scent, and tried to block out the memory of what a wreck Elle had been when I first met her. _No freaking way_ would I let that happen to me.

###

The rest of my night passed fitfully, and one look in the bathroom mirror told me that it showed. I wanted to take a moment to just bemoan how awful I looked before getting out a brush and starting the assault on my tangled hair, but was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. "Hey Bella, can I come in?"

Claire. I raised my eyes to the ceiling, praying for patience. Between her, Peter, and Elle, I hadn't had more than a few seconds of alone time in days. It shouldn't get to me - really, what could you expect while we were on the road together? - it was just that it felt like my best female friends were purposefully making sure someone was with me at all times - like they didn't trust me to be on my own. Either their confidence in my ability to stay out of trouble had hit an all-time low since the drunk trucker incident (I had yet to find a way of properly expressing my appreciation for Elle's telling Peter and Claire about that little misadventure. Anyway, it was all Peter's fault; I placed the blame entirely on the drugs, because I would never have wandered off and let myself get cornered by those freaks if I'd had a clear head.) or they thought I was so depressed over Charlie that I would smash a mirror and use the glass shards to slit my wrists.

Their concern was touching but unneeded. Did I think _I_ should have been the one Arthur killed, instead of Charlie? Absolutely. Yet I was nowhere near suicidal. I still had compelling reasons to live, Peter being at the top of the list, of course. At least _he_ didn't seem to think I needed round-the-clock supervision. Running a close second was his father, because I had an obligation to stop him. He was going to die - preferably slowly and very, _very_ painfully - and I was going to be there to watch. I owed Charlie that much.

Another knock on the door, impatient this time. "Bella? Are you in there?"

"Yeah, I'm here. Come on in."

Claire was inside the tiny bathroom before I'd uttered the invitation, making it rather redundant, and examining me critically. "Another all-nighter, huh?"

I rolled my eyes, which of course were underlined by deep purple shadows. In sharp contrast to me, Claire looked perfect, her gold-tanned skin and makeup flawless, blonde hair falling in perfect waves over her shoulders. I wouldn't doubt that she could literally stay up all night and still look like that in the morning. "If you just came to play beauty and fashion critic..."

"Nope, I'm here to assist, not criticize." She held up her hand as if swearing an oath in court.

Anticipation made every vein in my body tingle, as though something strange and alive in my blood were urging me closer to her. Oh, wait - that was exactly what was happening. My hand touched hers, and the catalyst in our blood went crazy, both halves of the divided chemical, entity, or whatever it was reaching out to connect with their counterpart. The sensation wasn't _quite_ as intimate as when I shared what was in my mind with Peter, but it came pretty close.

Even though we'd done this several times before in order to share our abilities with each other, to keep Claire shielded and me from looking like a zombie after too many sleepless nights, it still freaked me out a little; I pulled away as soon as possible. Severing the connection got harder every time we opened it fully, but I forced my fingers to release their hold and wrenched my arm down to my side.

Claire backed up, also looking relieved that we were no longer touching. She covered her discomfiture with that ever-ready smile of hers. "There, you're gorgeous again."

"I don't know if I'd go that far - mostly I just look like I actually got a good night's sleep. I look...normal."

"Well, you pull off normal very well. Just to look at you, I'd never guess that you're Supergirl. Now come on - it's breakfast time."

"Don't need it." It wasn't depression talking; it was just that after having Claire's regenerating power injected into my system, I felt like I could happily go the rest of the year without food.

"Yes you do, trust me. My ability might do wonders erasing the effects of sleep deprivation, but it's pretty useless as a substitute for nutrient intake. 'Fraid you've still gotta do that the old-fashioned way."

###

We found Peter and Elle sitting on the hood of Claire's car, eating out of a package of muffins and poring over a road map. At least, Peter was poring over it; Elle appeared to be trying her best to ignore him.

"Hey guys. Can I have one of those?"

Peter got off the car, grabbing the package just as Elle reached for it and offering it to me. "Blueberry or chocolate chip?"

"I only see blueberry."

Peter swung around and glared. "Elle! I told you to save some for Bella and Claire."

She shrugged. "And you'll see there's still some left. I didn't touch the blueberry ones."

"Well aren't we lucky that you only like chocolate," Claire said caustically. "Otherwise we probably wouldn't get _anything_."

"So what? It's not like you could actually die of starvation. Anyway, _he_-" She glared at Peter "-ate the last of the Chex Mix yesterday-"

"That's irrelevant."

"-_And_ he's boring me to death with his stupid map!" Elle shot sparks at the offending map, burning a hole through its middle and lighting it on fire.

Peter quickly put out the fire and got ready to scold Elle; I moved between them. "Guys, cool it. Fighting doesn't help our situation."

"She just burned up my map," Peter exclaimed, fists clenched in frustration. "How do you expect us to get to Costa Verde with no map?"

"Try taking the highway," Elle suggested, addressing Peter while staying on my other side - using me as a human shield. How appropriate. "You could cut our travel time in half that way. See? No map of all the scenic back roads in America necessary."

Peter answered through gritted teeth. "Yes, but there's more chance of being seen on a highway, and we don't know who's looking for us."

"I don't care! You warped the license plate numbers past readability, so what does it matter if a traffic cam sees us? If we take a direct route we can make it to Bennet's place today, and I can't take much more quality time in the stinking car with you and your niece!"

"That's assuming Arthur's people aren't watching Mr. Bennet," I pointed out. "We may not be able to make contact with him."

"We will be." Claire said this with absolute conviction. I gave her a questioning glance. "It's been too long. Peter can go anywhere in a second, so I'm betting Arthur thinks that if we wanted to see Dad, we would've gone there already. He thinks his powers make him better than everyone else - _he_ wouldn't travel in a car like a normal person."

"Probably not," Peter agreed. "In any case, if we make it to Noah's, we're not going in through the front door."

"The back door, then?"

"No. I have a different plan."

_Thirteen hours later - Costa Verde_

"_This_ is your plan? Taking a walk?"

"You're the one who wanted to come," Peter reminded me.

I grumbled but couldn't argue, seeing as he was right. I _had_ insisted he bring me along; I wasn't about to let him head into a potentially dangerous situation alone. Besides, I couldn't resist the chance to stretch my legs after another all-day drive. So here I was, strolling down the streets of Claire's one-time hometown, holding Peter's hand and generally looking like a normal girl out with her boyfriend - or rather, that's how I would have looked if Peter and I weren't invisible.

He stopped halfway down the block and pointed out a small apartment complex at the other end of the street. "Claire told me that's where her dad moved after her mom asked him to get out of their house. Check it out."

"Okay...um...I'm no counter surveillance expert, but I don't _think_ the old lady with the Chihuahua is out here to watch the building; the guy with the cigarette looks kind of furtive, though. They're the only ones here, unless Arthur's got someone hiding in the bushes."

Peter scanned Chihuahua Lady's and Cigarette Guy's minds and said, "Good call on her."

"What about him?"

"Not Arthur's guy - he's just worried that his wife'll come home early from her book club and catch him smoking."

"Oh. Good. What about bugs in Bennet's apartment?"

"Take it from someone who's known Noah Bennet a little longer than you - he's not the kinda guy that you could just walk in and bug his house. Even if you managed it, he'd find the bugs the same day and use them to feed you bad information."

I spent a minute just absorbing that. Then, "Whoa. Company agents don't fool around. Are you sure going to him for help is really such a great idea? He sounds dangerous, and he doesn't like me."

"He doesn't trust you," Peter corrected, "because he doesn't know you, but he'll do anything he can for Claire."

"So maybe we should have sent _her_."

"We would have if she could turn invisible or teleport. Ready?"

I nodded yes, and next second we were inside, standing between Noah Bennet and his TV screen. Even when startled, he had excellent reflexes; he was on his feet with a gun pointed at us in almost as little time as it took Peter to step protectively in front of me - and Noah couldn't even move at superhuman speed.

"Easy, Noah, it's just us."

He lowered his gun, all traces of surprise and wariness vanishing...almost like he expected us... "Peter...and Bella Swan. Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

My jaw dropped. "_You_ heard about that? No way it made the news all the way down here in California!"

"It didn't," Noah assured me. "I have other sources."

"What-?"

Peter wasn't waiting for Noah's answer, though; he was staring off at some point to our right, his expression one of slightly surprised resignation. "You. I should've known."

I followed his gaze and saw Angela Petrelli standing in a narrow hallway that presumably led to another section of the apartment, that familiar smug smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "Hello, dear. We've been waiting for you."


	10. A Series of Encounters

**OK, first of all, I am so dang sorry I haven't updated in so long! If anyone's still reading, you have my deepest apologies. Now for the warning: this is a slightly fluffy chapter; wasn't meant to be, but fluff somehow crept in. I think (hope) the ending might make up for it though. **

Chapter 10: A Series of Encounters

"You!" Bella took a step in Angela's direction, instinctively tensing as if readying herself for combat. "_Why_ have you been waiting for us? What are you even doing here?" she demanded harshly, her voice rising.

Peter reached out to her telepathically, trying to calm her down, but she seemed to be in defensive mode; her mind was completely closed, even to him. "It's okay, Bella. She just wants to help."

She whirled around to face him, her big brown eyes skeptical. Even without access to her mind, it was plain that she didn't trust Angela.

"He's right, dear," Angela said, drawing Bella's attention back onto her. "Of course I want to help you." To Peter, she added, "And with your father intent on capturing Claire and Isabella and killing anyone who gets in his way, you need all the help you can get."

"I don't need you to tell me how bad our situation is," Bella said fiercely. "I kinda picked up on that when your husband _murdered my dad_!"

Peter squeezed her arm a little too hard. "Cool it." To Angela: "Do you know where he is now, what he's doing?"

Before she could answer, Noah broke in. "Where's Claire? She's safe, isn't she?"

"Yeah, she's hanging out with-" Peter paused, unsure how to define what Elle was to them. A hanger-on? An ally who sometimes seemed not to really like any of them except Bella, but who they were reasonably sure wouldn't try to kill them in their sleep? A victim of circumstance who just happened to be stuck with them? Bella's ex-cellmate? "A friend," he said at last - it was an accurate enough term. "I'll go get them." He teleported out and returned with Claire and Elle.

An awkward reunion ensued - Claire was happy to see her dad again but less than thrilled to find that he was still fairly tight with Angela, and Noah was nothing short of floored when he saw Elle, who couldn't quite manage to appear politely pleased to see him even though she'd had plenty of time to prepare.

Watching them, Bella wondered if she was the only person in the room who didn't have some kind of twisted history with everyone else. "Hey, everybody! We can have a really uncomfortable catch-up session later. This isn't a social visit, people." She turned to Noah Bennet. "Arthur Petrelli wants me and Claire, and he's got some new friends - military grade - helping him. So what should we do now?"

Noah moved slowly to the couch and sat down, the eyes behind his horn-rimmed glasses thoughtful. "Well, if he's really after you, he's keeping it clandestine and unofficial, which means it's still safe for you to be out in public - hide in plain sight. You'll need new identities, though; I can help you there."

"You'll also need to decide where you want to go," Angela chipped in. "Claire, did you and Isabella ever finalize your plans for college?"

"Well, no..."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Bella wanted to know.

"You still have to go to school, dear," Angela said condescendingly.

Bella jumped up from her seat beside Peter, accidentally knocking a stack of magazines to the floor. "Let me get this straight. Arthur is still out there, and you want me to just go off to college like everything's all hunky-dory?" she asked, borrowing Claire's phrase.

"As of now, pursuing higher education is probably your best shot at some kind of a normal life."

"And you think that's really an option for us with Arthur still out there? Shouldn't we be looking at ways to actually _stop_ him?"

Peter picked up the strain in her voice; nobody else seemed to notice, but he would bet all the money left in his wallet that she'd really like to say how full of shit she thought Angela was and storm out. "Bella, we don't need to do anything to stop him," he told her, speaking quickly so as to get the words out while her temper was still held in check. "Everything he wants to do hinges on him having the catalyst in yours and Claire's blood - without that, his formula's useless."

"Point taken. I'd still feel better if we took him out, though."

Elle chose that moment to pipe up. "There's just this one tiny little problem with that plan: if you actually got close enough to take Arthur down, he'd rip your head off like he did your dad's! Not that it'd be such a huge issue so long as you've got Claire, 'cause I'm sure she'd just heal you, but wouldn't it be easier for everyone if you could just not get killed in the first place?"

"She's right, you know," Noah told Bella, although he could barely believe it himself. He hadn't known Elle Bishop had it in her to be so rational.

"Claire, what do you want to do?"

"Oh, well..." Brief hesitation; she felt confused, not because of Peter asking her opinion, but because she'd gotten the feeling that he wanted her to say Arthur's demise wasn't necessary for her peace of mind. He wanted her to disagree with Bella. _What's up with that? I hope they're not fighting - after Mom and Dad split, I'd hate to see the same thing happen with them. _

"Claire?" Angela prompted. "Cat got your tongue?"

"No, I...I don't wanna run and fight all the time. I'd rather live like a normal person, even if I have to do it with a fake name."

Bella curled her fingers over Peter's hand, digging her nails into his skin just hard enough to show that she wasn't pleased. _Congratulations, you got me overruled. You don't have to worry about me and Claire being captured and used in Arthur's experiments - assuming he doesn't find out where Angela and Bennet plan to stash us. Happy?_

_ Very much so, as a matter of fact. I happen to care about your safety - so sue me. _

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly - the only outward indication she gave of the nonverbal communication between herself and her boyfriend. _You're so overprotective sometimes, Peter Petrelli. You know I can take care of myself-_

_ -But sometimes you won't, so I have to do it. What would you say if I were the one wanting to jump into a fight with a crazy guy we knew wanted to kill me? What _did_ you say last summer when I pushed for us to take down Pinehearst?_

_ I said it was unacceptably dangerous, _Bella admitted, her thoughts tinted with exasperation, resignation, and a little affection now. _So we're both overprotective idiots when it comes to each other. Great. _

###

The following afternoon, Noah Bennet got to work creating new identities for his adopted daughter and her friends. It was an easy task for someone with his skill set - at least until he was interrupted by a loud "Whatcha doin'?" from the doorway leading into his home office. He glanced up to find Elle standing there, leaning on the doorframe with her usual irritating I-own-the-place attitude.

"Well, I'm fixing to make new driver's licenses for you and your friends. It's a long, dull process." Elle was easily bored; surely she wouldn't want to stick around to watch a long, dull process.

She let out a long, huffy sigh. "Oh, great. Well, I've got nothing else to do besides hang out with you - Mrs. Petrelli's gone to the bank, Claire went to the beach, and Bella went off somewhere with Peter, so now it's just you and me. Joy."

Noah barely managed to contain his own glee. "Would you like me to show you how to alter someone's ID? First you scan it into the computer-"

Abruptly, Elle began speaking over him. "I found out you were telling the truth."

"Beg your pardon?"

"The last time I was in Costa Verde, you captured me and short-circuited my ability with a _doggy bath_. Then you told me how my dad used to experiment on me. Over the summer I took this spirit walk thingy with Bella - basically we relived a lot of past events, and I got solid proof that what you said is the truth."

"Of course it is. Why would I make up something like that?"

It was meant rhetorically, and Elle didn't reply. She paced through Noah's office a few times, then whirled to face him, hands on her hips. "How was he able to get away with it? Why did nobody ever stop him? Why... Why did he want to do that to me?"

"Your father wasn't cut out for parenting - experiments were more in his comfort zone. No one stopped him because testing the abilities of people like you is what the Company was set up for, although we didn't normally run tests on children as young as you were then." Looking up to gauge her reaction, he saw that she was far from satisfied and couldn't blame her - there really was no justification for what Bob had done to her, especially since brain damage resulting from the tests themselves and the Haitian forcing her to forget them had left her mentally unstable for life. "I'm sorry that that happened to you, but it's the past now. Can I give you some advice? Don't dwell on it anymore. You seem to be doing a lot better than you were last time I saw you-"

"I am, it's just that seeing you...brought up old memories, you know?"

"Understandable."

"You know what? I think I'm gonna head outside, soak up some rays. You never really appreciate the sun till you live somewhere perpetually cloudy like Forks."

###

Claire tipped her head back, feeling the sun's ultraviolet light soak into her skin and loving the fact that she could be out on the beach at high noon with no sunscreen and never have to worry about getting skin cancer in a few years. La Push's First Beach had been beautiful in its way, with its high, dramatic cliffs overlooking the ocean and the forest nearby as a kind of natural border, but it was always cold - the sort of place where you went swimming (but only if you were _extremely_ determined to do so), then quickly dried off and put on a couple layers of cover-ups. You didn't walk around in just your bikini for very long unless you wanted to freeze to death. Therefore, in Claire's opinion, it wasn't a proper beach.

Opening her eyes, she sat up and reached for the Coke (complete with frivolous little umbrella) sitting on the sand beside her - and froze. There was something familiar about the guy examining a seashell down by the shoreline...but it couldn't be... Sitting up straighter, she whipped off her sunglasses as if removing them would help her see more clearly. A closer look proved that it was indeed West Rosen she was seeing. _No way..._ It was eerily similar to her first days in Costa Verde, when all she'd wanted was to survive high school without being outed as a freak and caught by Primatech, and he had contrived to be there every time she turned around. _Can I not come to this town without running into this guy _everywhere_! _

She rapidly calculated her possible courses of action - she could approach him, stay where she was and wait to see if he would notice her, or leave before he had a chance to - and the pros and cons of each one. Considering how badly their last parting had gone when he had tried to stop her from returning to Forks, he might be less than ecstatic to see her. In any case, no matter what his current feelings toward her might be, she could ill afford a scene with her sometime boyfriend when she was a fugitive - an unofficial one, but still. Now was not the time to take chances.

Gathering up her drink and the paperback book she'd brought in case she got bored admiring the sunlight, she left the beach at the fastest walk she could manage without actually looking like she was running from anything.

From there she wandered aimlessly down the street, with the vague notion of finding Peter and Bella. Bella had said something about wanting to shop - now _there_ was something you didn't see every day. She headed for the nearest shopping center and soon found them sitting outside an ice cream parlor, sharing a large chocolate-vanilla frozen yogurt swirl. "Hey, guys!"

They both looked up, and Bella dropped her spoon. "Claire! I thought you'd be at the beach all afternoon, if not longer." She laughed softly - Claire had actually said that she could happily spend all week there.

"Yeah, well, it...got boring after a while," Claire fibbed; there was no reason to trouble anyone else with her West-sighting.

"Since you're here, want me to buy you an ice cream cone? I don't _think_ Bella spent all my money..." Peter mock-glared at his girlfriend, who flushed and muttered an apology.

"Geez, what'd you buy anyway?" Claire seized Bella's shopping bag, peeked inside, and saw...a lot of books. "Figures. Only you could spend all your shopping money on _books_."

"All the books I used to have burned up along with Charlie's house..." Bella sadly lowered her eyes to the tabletop.

Peter gave her hand a comforting squeeze, then fished a five-dollar bill out of his jeans pocket and handed it to Claire. "Go get something to eat." She thanked him and went into the ice cream shop, where she bought a double scoop of strawberry ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. When she came back, Bella got up so that Claire could have her chair and relocated herself to Peter's lap. He automatically put his arm around her waist to ensure that she didn't fall off, and she leaned back into his embrace, her lips curving into a contented half-smile. Whatever disagreements they might have had over whether they should fight Arthur openly or stay hidden, they were clearly over it. Claire quickly put a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth so that her happy grin, if noticed by either of them, could be passed off as pleasure at the taste. Privately, she was thrilled to see them happy together. For the moment all was right with the world...

...Until Peter leaned in to kiss Bella's neck and caught sight of Claire's bare feet. "Hey, where're your shoes?"

"Didn't wear any. Is that a problem?" She had to ask since Bella was now gaping at her in obvious horror.

"Yes! Claire, it's hot today. You do know that asphalt holds heat incredibly well, which generally makes walking around barefoot on hot days _a very bad idea_."

"Look, I'm fine-" As she spoke, Claire crossed her legs so that her left ankle rested on her right knee, inspected the sole of her foot, and interrupted herself with a startled yelp. The skin was covered in blistering burns, as well as being so filthy it had turned black. "Holy shit! I know I can't feel pain, but I can't believe I didn't notice _this_!"

Once free of contact with the hot pavement her foot began to heal, but not before Claire's prodding caused one of the blisters to burst open and bleed slightly. Bella turned away, gagging, and buried her face against Peter's shoulder. "I think you'll have to finish our chocolate-vanilla swirl by yourself," she told him, her voice slightly muffled. "I've suddenly lost my appetite."

_Emile Danko - Tokyo, Japan_

It was closing time at Yamagato Industries, so there were a lot of people leaving through the corporate headquarters' front doors. The Hunter ignored them all. The face of his target was imprinted in perfect detail on his memory; he would know the man when he saw him. All others were irrelevant - the only thing that mattered was his mission.

Finally, after a seemingly interminable wait, Hiro Nakamura came out, accompanied as always by his good buddy, Ando Masahashi. Danko followed them at a discreet distance - making sure not to draw attention, of course, blending into the crowd and not appearing in the least like he was stalking anyone - as they left their office building and headed for a bar. The streets were less crowded here, which pleased Danko - these surroundings provided a perfect opportunity for him to finish his job, though he could have made his own opportunity had none presented itself.

Drawing his stun-gun from its holster, he quickly and silently approached his target from behind - stealth was of the utmost importance here; Nakamura couldn't be alerted to Danko's presence before he struck, or he'd teleport away - and fired. His aim was dead on, and Hiro crumpled to the ground in an unconscious heap. Ando whirled around, eyes widening, but he didn't even have time to shout in alarm before Danko laid him out with a hard punch to the jaw. He then holstered his weapon, pulled his walkie-talkie out of the clip-on holder on his belt, and contacted his team. "I got him. Bring the van."

The black prisoner transport van zoomed around the corner, tires squealing, Danko's men jumped out, and they had Hiro loaded up and restrained inside of five minutes. Before taking his place up front beside the driver, Danko paused for a brief look back at Ando, who was still dazed but conscious. He had seen everything.

"Sir? Should we take out the witness?"

"Negative, soldier. We leave him."

Danko's men were too well-trained to let their expressions reflect what they were thinking, but he could _feel _their incredulity. "Sir-?"

He turned on the man who had spoken, not even trying to conceal the ferocity that had earned him his nickname, the Hunter. "Are you questioning my orders, soldier?"

"N-no sir!"

"Good, because the plan is very specific, and it calls for us to leave the witness. Understand, men?"

The men all nodded mutely. They weren't about to argue with him.

As they drove away with Hiro chained up in the back of the van, leaving Ando lying on the street, Danko allowed himself a small smile. The plan was in motion.

**I think from now on I'll probably add in the bits with Danko at the end of the Bella/Peter & co. chapters - I don't want to try to expand his parts enough to make separate Danko chapters. Is that okay? Anyway, next will be an Edward chapter with a twist. Review and I'll try to get it out sooner...please?**


	11. Digging Up the Corpses

Chapter 11: Digging Up the Corpses

Gabriel Gray awoke feeling very stiff, as people often do when they sleep in a car instead of a bed, and wondered _why_ he wasn't in his much more comfortable bed. Then it all came back to him - late last night his telepathic young friend, Edward Cullen, had shown up at his door, announced that he felt like visiting his family's previous home in Washington, and asked Gabriel to come along with him, citing the fact that the drive from New York to Washington was a long one to make alone. Gabriel had protested that he couldn't just up and leave the state, but Edward had been so insistent that in the end it was easier just to go along with what he wanted. Besides, it might be nice to get out of the clock shop for a few days.

What Edward hadn't seen fit to mention was that his family did not, under any circumstances, want him returning to Forks, so he had been forced to forget about it until the rest of the Cullens had left on a hunting trip - hence his beginning the journey at such an absurdly late hour - and his real reason for wanting Gabriel with him. It wasn't because he was afraid of getting lonely. Hunting trip or no, he knew that Alice would tell on him the instant she saw what he was up to, and then the whole family would come after him and drag him home again.

He also knew that, for some bizarre reason, Alice couldn't always see Gabriel clearly - she had once said it seemed to her that Gabriel wasn't all _there_, that the Gabriel Gray Edward knew was only half of the person he truly was, which dovetailed perfectly with the feelings Edward sometimes got that there were hidden things buried deep inside Gabriel's mind, things Gabriel had forgotten or purposefully shut away, things that could burst free at any time and...who knew what would happen then? And so Gabriel's future was constantly subject to change, beyond Alice's ability to predict.

Edward felt sorry for the man - missing a part of yourself was terrible, as he had realized when he'd left his heart behind with Bella - but if Gabriel's fractured psyche shielded him from Alice's precognition, Edward was more than willing to use him to conceal his sure-to-be-disapproved-of activities.

So far he had avoided explaining all this, but he sensed that he would soon have to - he could read the questions forming in Gabriel's mind. It was just a matter of choosing which one to answer first; Edward picked the one requiring the shortest answer. "No, my family does not know where I am, and I want to keep it that way. Why? They don't want me to go back home; they think it would only stir up unpleasant memories."

"You're lying," Gabriel accused him, "or at least you're hiding part of the truth. There's another reason your family doesn't want you going back."

_Dammit! Well at least I learned something: his ability to detect lies can't be bypassed with half-truths. I'll just have to be completely honest...and hope he isn't frightened too badly. _"All right, I'll admit there is more to it - my family is concerned about what I want to do in Forks."

"Which is?"

Edward's hands clenched, almost breaking the steering wheel before he got himself under control. It was hard to talk about this - about _her_ - and Gabriel had ripped the wound wide open so casually... _Control,_ he reminded himself. _Telling him won't hurt anything. _"I want to get my girlfriend back," he said tersely.

"And that's a problem because...? Does your family not like her?"

"No, they loved her. The problem is that she was murdered last March."

Gabriel said nothing, and his mind went blank - he didn't know what to make of this. Edward took advantage of his silence to outline his plan, before Gabriel could begin shooting questions at him. He fully expected the onslaught to begin the instant he stopped talking, but instead Gabriel just said, "So we're going to bring your girlfriend back to life?" as if he were merely asking about tomorrow's weather forecast.

"That is the basic idea, yes," Edward replied, cautiously relieved that he wasn't getting a lecture on how wrong his plan was, although that part must be coming...

But no, Gabriel seemed genuinely unopposed to the idea. "You really think you can do it?" In fact, he sounded almost excited.

"I believe so."

"Then I'll help you." _Fixing Edward's dead girlfriend should be more interesting than repairing clocks...even if it does sound a little crazy. But hey, it's not any crazier than people who can read thoughts and move things with their minds, right? _

Edward smiled. "Thank you, Gabriel - I'm glad there's _someone_ who doesn't think I'm insane."

_Two days later_

_Forks Cemetery_

"You're insane."

"Come on, Gabriel - you can't honestly tell me you didn't think of this beforehand? No, wait, don't answer that - I can tell that you didn't."

"You really expect...I mean, you actually want us to..."

"I actually do. If you've changed your mind about helping me..."

Gabriel swallowed hard. "No, I said I would, and I will. Isn't grave-robbing a crime, though?"

"I suppose we'd be in a world of trouble if we got caught," Edward said carelessly, "but the murder of an innocent young girl is the real crime here. We're simply righting a great wrong, and if we're forced to commit some rather unsavory acts in order to do it-"

"That'll make me feel a lot better when I'm stuck in jail with you. How d'you plan on getting inside the cemetery anyway? There's a ten-foot fence around it, and even in a town this small, they probably don't leave the gate unlocked at one in the morning."

"The fence isn't much of an obstacle for me." Edward opened his Volvo's trunk and took out the shovel and tarp he'd bought yesterday. "You wait here, and warn me if you see anyone coming." With his enhanced hearing, Gabriel might actually detect an intruder before Edward did. Besides, retrieving Bella from her grave was a job he preferred to do alone.

Jumping the fence was easy, even with his heavy equipment; after that it was just a simple matter of finding the right grave to dig up. Edward was sure she had been buried near her paternal grandparents, so he searched near their graves first, and sure enough, there was a fresh one right beside the Swans' double plot. Too fresh, in fact - the new grave looked only weeks old, rather than months. _This can't be the right one, but I would have thought Charlie would want her next to his parents. _

Reluctant to admit the grave couldn't be Bella's, which would mean he'd have to start over and check every marker in the place, he moved closer to examine the tombstone.

HERE LIES CHARLIE SWAN

APRIL 7, 1964 - JUNE 29, 2005

_DEVOTED SON, FATHER, AND FRIEND, DEDICATED POLICE CHIEF_

_HIS DEATH IS A GREAT LOSS TO THE TOWN OF FORKS_

_WE'LL ALL MISS YOU, CHARLIE_

Edward stepped back, eyes widening in shock. Charlie, dead? It couldn't be! Yet there was his grave, too solidly real to leave even a shadow of a doubt. _A shame - Charlie was a good man. I wonder what happened to him? _He spent a silent moment at the graveside out of respect for Bella's father, then continued his search for Bella herself.

He hadn't gone far from Charlie's grave when the toe of his shoe collided with a rectangular piece of stone - another marker, almost hidden by tall grass even though it seemed very new. Edward bent down to read the engraving, which read simply:

ISABELLA MARIE SWAN

SEPTEMBER 13, 1987 - JUNE 29, 2005

_BELOVED DAUGHTER_

_MAY SHE REST IN PEACE_

Edward's first thought was that they had put the wrong date of death - Victoria had killed Bella on the twenty-third of March, not the twenty-ninth of June. Then he realized the date wasn't the only thing that was wrong with this picture; according to the epitaphs, Bella and Charlie had both died on the same day, but while Charlie's grave was still distinguished by a large mound of recently excavated earth where grass was only just beginning to sprout again, the ground around Bella's marker was completely undisturbed. No grave had been dug there, not even a small one for an urn filled with her ashes. The stone had been placed there in memory of her, but her body wasn't in this cemetery.

###

When Gabriel heard someone approaching from inside the graveyard, he checked to make sure it was Edward and then quickly turned away, hoping very much that the body was securely wrapped in the tarp - if the girl had been dead for four months, give or take a week or two, by now she was bound to be an ugly sight, one the watchmaker was not at all eager to see.

Edward's footsteps came closer, paused; there was a soft sound like a sudden gust of wind as he leaped over the fence, a muffled _thud_ as he landed, and then he said, "You can look now, Gabriel - I'm not carrying a rotten corpse." He sounded put out and discouraged.

Turning to look at him, Gabriel saw that Edward was empty-handed except for his shovel and tarp, which was still rolled up and obviously not enshrouding a body. "You didn't get her after all? Why not?"

"Her body wasn't buried there." Gabriel wanted to offer his sympathy, but Edward went on before he could open his mouth. "Don't worry, I have a theory as to where else we might look - her parents were divorced, and her mother lives in Florida. It's possible that Renee may have wanted her buried closer to her."

"So we're going to Florida now? Don't you think we should be sure that's where she's buried first?"

Edward considered it, then agreed. "I suppose I can break into the mortuary and see if they have any record of shipping her body-"

"There's an easier way," Gabriel interrupted. "You used to live here, and people know you dated this girl. Why don't you just ask somebody where her grave is?"

###

Following Gabriel's advice, the next day Edward sought out the person most likely to know the location of Bella's final resting place (as well as everything else that had happened in Forks during the last decade) and least likely to get suspicious when he asked for it: Jessica Stanley, for whom it was the last weekend at home before she left for college in California.

"Bella isn't buried anywhere," she told him. "She totally burned up in the fire that killed her and her dad."

"A fire?"

"Yeah, a freaking huge one. You can go by where their house used to be, and there's, like, _nothing_ left of it. And when they found Chief Swan, his _head_ was torn off. I almost hurled when my mom told me about it, and I didn't even see him; I'd hate to be the fireman that did. I mean, how does someone's head come off in a fire? They think some piece of debris must've fallen on his body and cut it off. Isn't that terrible? And Bella was never found at all - she's probably just a little pile of ashes now, and I bet she's still in the house somewhere. That's so horror-movie-of-the-week, isn't it?"

"Indeed," Edward said vaguely; his mind was a million miles away, working at hyper-speed as he tried to figure out exactly what was going on here. He read in Jessica's mind that she sincerely believed what she was telling him was the God's honest truth, but he knew for a fact that Bella had died at Victoria's hand, not in a fire - he had _seen _the redheaded vampire's memory of plunging her hand through Bella's chest, ripping out her heart and crushing it in her fist. It was possible that Victoria had set a fire to destroy the evidence of what she'd done, lest the Volturi decide it was too conspicuous a kill and come after her, but she had murdered Bella in a dark alley in what looked like a seedy part of Seattle, not in the Swans' house.

Meanwhile, Jessica was still blathering on. "...think the fire had to have been set by her boyfriend's cousin, personally."

Instantly she commanded Edward's full attention once more. "I beg your pardon?"

"Peter and Claire's cousin, Elle. She came to visit them over the summer, and I just got this feeling about her, like she was the kind of girl who could totally burn someone's house down if she wanted to."

"And who might Peter and Claire be?" Edward asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Jessica smacked herself on the forehead. "Right, I totally forgot you wouldn't know about them! They came into town after your family moved out, and Claire was Bella's new best friend from, like, her first day at school, which I totally didn't get - I mean, Bella was this total depressive case after you left, walking around like a zombie and everything, and Claire was cool. What she wanted with someone like Bella... Anyway, she introduced Bella to her uncle, Peter, and they started dating. Bella wasn't a zombie anymore after that - not that I'm saying she was normal either, I mean, she was still herself..."

Edward tuned out again. So Bella had moved on, had found someone else. Jessica had met the new boyfriend once, at her birthday party; Edward watched the memory of that night playing out in her mind's eye and had to admit that Peter seemed like exactly the type of person he'd always known Bella should have - another human, someone who wasn't risking her life just by being near her, someone she wouldn't have to give up her soul to be with, someone who could give her the life she deserved...someone safe. Unless he'd brought a crazed arsonist into her life, of course.

"Jessica? Was there any actual evidence to support your theory?"

"Well, the fire department said they couldn't find any accelerant, gasoline or whatever, or matches - it was like the fire just started all by itself. So nobody could prove it was arson, but when the police went to tell Peter and Claire that Bella had died, they were gone. Some of their things, like clothes and stuff, were gone too, but a lot of it had just been left. Like they packed up and got outta town in a big hurry. Why would they disappear on the same night the Swans' house burned up unless they knew their cousin was behind it and wanted to protect her? I'm not the only one that thinks so," she added defensively, seeing Edward's skeptical expression. "The cops were looking for them for like a week after the fire, but they're just gone. Like an episode of _Without a Trace_."

"Yes, I can certainly see how their well-timed disappearance would arouse suspicion. Thank you, Jessica."

After parting ways with his ex-classmate, Edward conducted his own investigation into what she'd told him and found evidence in the form of illegally-obtained police records and the burned-out ruins of Charlie Swan's house that supported her story. Which left him wondering how Victoria could have had such a vivid recollection of killing Bella when he'd just seen proof that Bella had been alive months after the supposed date of the incident.

_Well, at least Gabriel will be pleased to know that we won't be digging up any graves after all. I should go find him, tell him the good news, I suppose..._

Suddenly another mental 'voice' drowned out his own. _Edward Cullen, what the _hell_ do you think you are doing? You had better come here right now - I'm not running all over this town playing hide-and-seek with you, do you hear me? _

He cringed. He hadn't been away from Gabriel for very long - half an hour at the most - but apparently it had been long enough for Alice to find him, and she didn't seem to be in a very good mood. He estimated that there were still a couple miles between him and her - her thoughts were so loud in his head that she could have been screaming right into his ear, but only because she was actively projecting them at him. She knew he would hear her once she got closer anyway, so she'd decided to be proactive instead of trying to sneak up on him. In doing so, she'd given him a chance to escape before she could catch up with him, but he wasn't going to; he'd had enough of running from and being chased down by his own family. Besides, he needed to discuss his findings with Alice anyway.

###

He found her leaning on her new car, a canary-yellow Porsche Jasper had given her for an anniversary present; she must have driven it at top speed to have reached Forks so fast. "That was very clever of you, waiting until we left to hunt and then hiding behind your mentally fractured friend so that I wouldn't see you sneaking out, but not clever enough. When we came home and found you gone, we knew there was only one place you'd go - well, besides Italy, but I saw enough to know that you didn't intend to try that again. You're lucky I was able to persuade Carlisle to let me retrieve you by myself - you'd be in a world of trouble if he were here. He's convinced that you've decided to take up grave-robbing, that you came here to steal Bella's body. You know, I can understand the need for a new hobby after a century or two, but can't you pick something else, like pottery or sky-diving?"

"I assure you I wasn't going to disinter Bella just for thrills, Alice. But I think it's safe to assume you already knew my plan regarding her?"

Alice held up her hands, palms facing outward in a 'just stop' gesture. "Yeah, I got that part too. And while it's incredibly touching that you'd go to all this trouble because of the slimmest of slim chances that you _might_ be able to bring her back...it's still just a little sick. Not to mention that I don't think it can be done. I know Carlisle brought you back from the edge when you were human and dying, but you weren't _dead_. There are some lines you just shouldn't cross, Edward."

_She's only saying that because she doesn't know how it feels to lose the person she loves most in the world. If our positions were reversed, I wonder if there would be any line Alice wouldn't cross to have Jasper returned to her. _"Well, you needn't concern yourself over this issue any longer." He told her everything he'd learned from Jessica, finishing with, "So it seems that Bella is gone beyond my reach. Somewhere in the world there may be a person, or people, who can repair their bodies after sustaining fatal damage, but I doubt there's anyone who has the power to turn ashes back into a body."

"Oh. Edward, I'm so sorry. I know how hard it must be for you to have to accept that she's really g-"

"No, you don't. You can't begin to know how I feel," he said harshly.

A look of indignation flashed across Alice's features; then she softened. "I suppose you're right. Look, I don't want to argue. Will you come home with me now? Please?"

Edward sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to harden himself against Alice's compelling entreaties. "I'm afraid I can't do that, not now that I've learned there's more to Bella's death than I had previously suspected."

"What does that matter now?" Alice burst out, frustrated. "Is it really important whether Victoria killed her or some arsonist did? The end result is the same!"

"It matters to me. Over the last months I considered resuming my hunt for Victoria, if I was ever allowed to leave the house again - yes, I know it would be a long shot, what with her talent for evasion, you don't need to tell me that - but now I have a new target, a human one, which means I can't put off hunting them for an indefinite time. Humans are generally not around as long as we are."

Alice pursed her lips as she turned this over in her head, then sighed. "All right, I'll help you track the people you think may have been responsible for Bella's death. I want to punish her killer as much as you do. So are you going to tell me who we're looking for?"

"Her name is Elle Bishop; she's a distant cousin of Claire Bennet and Peter Petrelli, who moved to Forks after our family's departure and became Bella's best friend and boyfriend, respectively - no, don't feel bad for me, Alice. I _wanted_ her to see other humans, remember? Although one whose family connections put her in danger was hardly what I had in mind-"

"-It would be Bella's luck to find someone like that," Alice finished. "Poor girl. Now, why don't you go find Gabriel, and then we'll track these people down and find out exactly what they did to Bella."

**I think it's about time Edward learned Victoria didn't kill Bella, yes? He was so behind the times that I was beginning to feel sorry for him. Of course he still thinks she's dead and now suspects Elle of having done her in instead, and Peter and Claire of having helped her get away with it, which was not the direction I'd planned on going. I had a different plan for this chapter but realized it was too improbable, and that Bella's friends making a hasty exit from Forks the same night her house burned down would look ****very**** suspicious. All in all, this approach seemed to work. **

**Also, I'm thinking this will be the last Edward-centric chapter before this little arc about him and Sylar merges with the story's main plot. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what that means...**


	12. Just Another Night

**Not much to say about this chapter except sorry for all the dialogue. It was easy and fun to write, but I think I may have gone a little overboard. I need to work on the talk/action ratio a little. **

Chapter 12: Just Another Night

_Peter Petrelli - Hanover, New Hampshire_

"Breathe. Come on, breathe," Peter muttered while pumping the unresponsive car crash victim's chest.

"Pete." His new partner, Hesam Malek, spoke quietly at first, then louder as Peter ignored him. "Pete! There's nothing you can do - he's dead. It's over."

"No, if I can just get him breathing again..."

Hesam's thoughts revealed that he was now questioning Peter's grasp of reality. "How do you think you're gonna do that? He was pinned in the car too long."

"I know _that_," Peter growled. Waiting for the equipment to pry the man out of the twisted wreck of his car to arrive, standing there uselessly when he could have torn the metal frame apart with his bare hands and got the guy out a heck of a lot sooner - when it wouldn't have taken a miracle to resuscitate him - had been maddeningly frustrating. But of course he couldn't do that.

Noah Bennet had done a fabulous job creating new identities for Bella and Claire and their cohorts to hide behind, but part of hiding in plain sight was not drawing attention to yourself. Peter understood that, and if pretending to be painfully ordinary was what it took to keep his girlfriend and niece out of Arthur's clutches he was willing to do it, but letting someone die when he could save them... That was asking too much of him.

Glancing at a point somewhere over his partner's shoulder, he blurted out, "What _is_ that thing?"

The ploy worked - Hesam jumped at least a foot, twirled around in midair, and began searching for the thing that seemed to have alarmed Peter. "What thing? Where?"

With his partner successfully distracted, Peter ripped off one of his bloodstained latex gloves and zapped the man. His body jerked, his heart lurched, then it slowly started to beat again. "Hey, I've got a pulse here!" Peter shouted.

Hesam spun around, eyes widening. "No way! How'd you...?"

"Let's load him up, see if we can get him stabilized."

Still looking shocked and disbelieving, Hesam went for a stretcher.

###

Later, as Peter headed out of the hospital after the end of his shift, he was stopped by his supervisor's voice calling, "Carson! Pete Carson!"

"Yes?"

"I just ran into your partner; he said you made a nice save today. Got a guy's pulse back after Hesam thought for sure he was DOA."

Peter shrugged. "Just a lucky break, I guess."

"Uh-huh. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that the schedule's changed - you come in two hours later tomorrow, but that means you'll get off later too."

"That's okay. Walking home in the dark never hurt anyone." Especially not if you had the option of teleporting - not that being out at night in this town was particularly dangerous anyway. Hanover was nowhere near as quiet as Forks, but neither was it filled with junkies and switchblade-wielding gangbangers. Other than the occasional drunken college kid from Dartmouth, the population of Hanover was pretty tame. And speaking of college kids from Dartmouth...

At first Bella hadn't liked the idea of pursuing her higher education with Angela Petrelli's assistance - actually, that was an understatement. She'd refused point-blank although the only thing she needed from Angela was tuition money; her grades were good enough to get her in without Angela using her influence. In the end she gave in, but only after Peter and Claire had spent days convincing her it was the right thing to do.

So now here they were in Hanover, New Hampshire, home of Dartmouth College; the fall semester started tomorrow, and Bella and Claire were both looking forward to it. Meanwhile Peter had resumed his usual job with the local EMS, saving people as best he could without getting noticed for being _too_ heroic, and Elle had found employment at a bookstore Bella had dragged her to several times - Bella was still in the process of replacing her old books, the ones that had burned up in Charlie's house.

Peter's cell phone rang, dragging him out of his memories of the last couple of weeks. _It's gotta be Bella. _She was always there to meet him when he got off work, but this afternoon she was a no-show. Not that her blowing him off had upset him, but it _was_ a little worrying since she seldom deviated from her routine. He answered the call before the phone had time to ring again. "Hey, Bella, where-"

But that was as far as he got before she cut him off. "Peter, you have _got_ to come get me out of here."

"What?" Peter could barely hear her over the background noise...no, not noise...dance music? "Bella, where the hell are you?"

"I'm still on campus."

Peter relaxed somewhat - at least she wasn't anywhere particularly dangerous. And she didn't sound like she was in pain or scared, just urgent and strangely quiet...like she was hiding from someone? _What the hell? _

As if she somehow knew what he was thinking, Bella launched into a hurried explanation. "Okay, you know I came up here to help Claire settle into her dorm room?"

"Right."

"Well, we met her roommate, Annie - who's kind of a mental case, in an obnoxiously perky sort of way - and she made Claire promise to go to this get-to-know-your-new-classmates party, and Claire made _me _come with her! I just escaped, and now I'm hiding in a restroom."

"You're at a party?" Aware that he was raising his voice, Peter deliberately brought it and his temper back under control. "You had me thinking you were in some kind of trouble."

Bella had the decency to be ashamed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. But Peter, I really need you to come get me. There're all these _people_, and they're all in an upbeat party mood. It's awful." Her tone had gone from apologetic to pitifully pleading.

"So leave," Peter suggested.

"Claire won't let me! I already tried twice, and she caught me both times. She said I need to get out more." Bella sighed; Peter pictured her sticking a fingernail into her mouth and starting to chew on it. "She might be right, but she picked a totally inappropriate venue to try and spice up my social life."

"Have to agree with you there." Really, who in their right mind would think taking Bella Swan to a party would _ever_ be a good idea?

"So you'll come rescue me?" she asked eagerly. "Please, Peter?"

He sighed; at least she couldn't use her eyes on him over the phone. "All right, all right. But leave the restroom - no way am I teleporting in there."

_BPOV_

After hanging up my phone, I ventured out to scan the crowd for Claire - it was actually surprising that she hadn't already showed up to chew me out for hiding in a bathroom stall. As it happened, I didn't have to look far, because Annie had finally roped Claire into playing _Guitar Hero III_ with her. From what I could hear while maintaining a safe distance, Annie seemed to be simultaneously coaching Claire on how to play better and bragging about her own mad _Guitar Hero _skills. I couldn't believe it - how one person could be so full of themselves and still manage to be nice about it was beyond me.

I wondered if a few weeks with Annie would make Claire reconsider living in town with me, Peter, and Elle, but right now I doubted it. I was supposedly the stubborn one, but Claire could give me a run for my money when she wanted to, and she'd decided she wanted the full college experience, including dorms and roommates. And if the distance between us put her outside the range of my shielding abilities...well, that didn't seem to worry her nearly as much as it worried me. So what if we hadn't seen any sign of Arthur's henchmen since we came to New Hampshire? They were still out there, still combing the country for us...

An invisible hand grabbed my upper arm; I nearly screamed out loud, but before my vocal cords could produce any sound everything disappeared. Instead of the on-campus recreation room where the party was being held, I was suddenly standing in my new bedroom. Another second and Peter rematerialized in the visible spectrum, still holding me by the arm.

I jerked away and thumped him on the chest. "Scare me half to death, why don't you? You know, just because I've died a couple times and lived to tell about it doesn't mean I enjoy the experience! That sentence didn't make much sense, did it?"

"Not really, but it's you, so..."

"...So? What are you _not_ saying, that you've learned not to expect too much sense from me?"

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it!"

Peter raised his eyebrows. "Are you telepathic now?"

"Don't need to be," I retorted. "I don't read minds, but I can read _you_. Right now, for instance, you're thinking that it's your turn to do dinner."

"Hello, Pizza Hut. Get your jacket."

He very considerately held my jacket for me while I slipped my arms into the sleeves, then opened the door for me. "You know," I said as we set off through downtown Hanover, "this kind of reminds me of our first 'date' - you promised me pizza that night too, if memory serves...and then I almost got eaten by Laurent."

"Yeah, I remember - I saw a vampire for the first time, killed him, and got mad at you for keeping secrets. And you consider that a date?"

"It was also the first time I kissed you," I reminded him. "Which kind of qualifies it as a date for us. We don't exactly do things that most people would say are suitable date activities, or when we do it's usually interrupted by the supernatural."

"What about yours and Claire's graduation?" Peter countered. "No vamps or wolves butted in, and we went to that restaurant with all those animal heads on the walls."

"We went there with Claire _and my dad_," I pointed out, determined to win this debate. "Parental accompaniment automatically disqualifies it as a date. We couldn't even make out without Charlie busting us, or don't you remember?"

"That experience is permanently imprinted on my brain. Okay, so maybe stuff does have a tendency to happen when we try to spend time together, but not this time. I promise you, nothing is going to happen tonight."

_End BPOV_

Meanwhile, back on the campus of Dartmouth College...

"I need a break." Claire pulled the plastic faux guitar's strap over her head before Annie could protest.

Of course, that didn't stop her from protesting a short moment later. "What? You're quitting already? Claire, you'll never improve at anything if you give up after only three tries."

Claire turned away to hide her grimace. If Annie tried to 'improve' her one more time... First it was her study habits, now it was _Guitar Hero_, and this was only their first day as roommates! "I'm hungry," she lied, then made her escape.

Bella, she realized, was probably long gone by now, and that was fine by Claire. After all, you could only lead the horse to water. She wasn't even going to bother looking for her friend...until she saw a flash of long, shiny dark hair that looked a lot like Bella's out of the corner of her eye. "Bella?" She threaded her way through the crowd toward the girl, reached out and touched her shoulder. "Bella? I thought you would've-"

The girl turned around. "Excuse me?"

Claire dropped her hand and stepped back, embarrassed. "Oh, you're not Bella. My bad."

"It's cool; we're supposed to be at this party to meet new people, right? So who're you?"

"Claire Morgan. And you?"

"Well, you can call me Not-Bella if you want, but Gretchen Berg is the name on my license."

Claire held out her hand for her new acquaintance to shake. "Nice to meet you, Gretchen Berg, if I can call you that; Not-Bella is kind of a mouthful."

Gretchen smiled. "Okay. So do you want help finding Bella? I don't know her, but-"

"Nah, she isn't here anymore - my sister's not what you'd call a party person. You just look like her from the back is all. Actually, I'm thinking I might get out of here myself, before Annie tracks me down again."

"Who's Annie?"

"_That's_ Annie." Claire pointed to the _Guitar Hero_ setup, where Annie had just defeated yet another challenger.

"She's horrible! She's been hogging that thing all night," Gretchen said, rolling her eyes. "You know her?"

"Yeah...she's my roommate," Claire admitted.

Gretchen winced. "Ouch. How'd you get stuck with her? I mean your sister goes here too; you could room with her."

"She lives in town with her boyfriend."

"Oh. Sucks for you. So...I was on my to grab a soda when you grabbed me."

"Me too. Do you want to...?"

"Sure, let's go."

As she tapped her plastic cup of Coke against Gretchen's in a mock toast Claire thought, _Well, maybe this party won't end up being a total loss after all. _

###

Two hours later, Claire went back to her dorm room and saw that all the lights had been switched off. _Annie must have gone to bed already - she wouldn't want to oversleep tomorrow. _"I didn't see you leave the party," she muttered as she groped her way across the unfamiliar room and turned on her bedside lamp - which cast a soft glow over her bed and the perfectly made one across from it. "I guess you're still there. And you left the window open."

Before closing said window, she poked her head out for a breath of fresh night air - and clapped her hand to her mouth in horror. Annie lay sprawled on the pavement seventy feet below, in a pool of her own blood.

_Emile Danko - Manhattan, NY_

From his rooftop vantage point, Danko peered through a window at his current targets and finalized his plan of attack. He was obviously out of the telepath's range since the man seemed unaware that he was being watched, so Danko decided to take out the speedster first; otherwise she would run when her boyfriend got shot.

He pressed the telescopic lens of his hunting rifle's eyepiece to his face, lined up his shot, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing stood between his tranquilizer dart and its target except a windowpane, which shattered easily on impact; the dart soared on unimpeded and lodged itself in the target's neck. The woman cried out, then went down as the contents of the drug capsule inside the hollow dart were released into her bloodstream.

The fat telepath crouched beside her, shook her, then noticed the dart in her neck. He pulled it out, examined it with a look of puzzlement - and that was all he had time to do. By then Danko had adjusted for his second target's new position, fired again, and nailed him.

This one took longer to go down due to his larger size, but Danko was patient. Once he was sure they were both unconscious, he radioed his team to go in and pick them up, then secured his rifle in its holster so as to leave both hands free for his climb down from the roof.

It was a fifteen-foot drop from the ledge bordering the rooftop to the fire escape, but Danko made it easily, and from there climbed down to street level with the speed and agility of a cat - a large hunting cat. His men met him with the black transport van just as his feet hit the concrete.

"We secured Parkman and Millbrook with no problem, sir," the squad leader informed him.

"Good man. I'll let Petrelli know we got 'em." Still, Danko hesitated for a split second before reaching for his cell phone. If he had his way, these freaks would never see Building 26; he would dearly love to finish them right here and now. Unfortunately he couldn't do that, because Matt Parkman and Daphne Millbrook were friends of the boss's top targets: Claire Bennet, Bella Swan, and his own wayward son, Peter, who Danko understood to be the most dangerous freak of all.

It was a little confusing, then, that the _girls_ were priority number one rather than Peter, but Danko hadn't tried too hard to figure out why. He was a hunter and a killer, not a mastermind schemer. As long as Petrelli let him take care of Parkman and Millbrook - and Nakamura - after he'd finished interrogating them, Danko would be happy. And, given what he knew about Petrelli's methods of extracting information, he decided it might actually be kinder for him to kill them now, in which case he would be only too pleased to hand them over.

Emile Danko did not believe in being kind.

**So now we have more insight into what Arthur's using Danko for. Question: did I make Danko too evil? I know he has no problem with killing people, but I'm not sure he's quite as sadistic as I painted him. **

**Question 2: I recently got this idea that involves Victoria coming back later. Should I go for it or not?**


	13. A New Threat

**Sorry for the unexciting-ness of this chapter. Really, feel free to hate it - except for certain bits of the dialogue, I kind of hate it myself. **

Chapter 13: A New Threat

_Arthur Petrelli & Emile Danko - Building 26_

Danko entered the interrogation room to find his employer standing over the unconscious forms of Matt Parkman and Daphne Millbrook, looking frustrated. "I'm assuming you didn't get anything out of them." His upwardly-inflected tone made the statement into a question.

"As it happens, I got a lot out of them - for instance, I learned that they were involved in the explosion that destroyed my old facilities - but they don't know the current whereabouts of that Swan girl and Claire Bennet. Which makes them another dead end." He sighed, removed a handkerchief from the pocket of his expensive suit jacket, and wiped his face even though he wasn't sweating; he only felt like he should be after expending so much effort telepathically 'interrogating' Parkman and Millbrook. "I'm afraid we'll have to try again."

"That'll be fine. Who's my next target?"

"You'll have to go out of the country for this one," Arthur warned.

"Fine," Danko said again. "Who is it?"

"A geneticist named Mohinder Suresh. He used to work for me, but he betrayed me and helped Swan escape."

"I'll bring him in, don't worry."

"Thank you, Mr. Danko. I'll get Suresh's file for you so you can read up on his abilities during your flight."

_Claire Bennet - Dartmouth College dormitories_

After the police left, Claire spent several minutes just pacing the dorm room that was now hers alone, running her fingers through her freshly straightened hair, before deciding she couldn't stay there overnight. She wouldn't able to sleep so close to all her dead roommate's possessions, and seeing Annie's trajectory on the wall, knowing Annie would never get to do any of the things she had planned on doing, was just so unbelievably _sad_ that Claire didn't think she could take it.

She left, not bothering to lock the door behind her - right now she was too distraught to care if someone broke in and stole every single one of her belongings - jogged down two flights of stairs, and broke into a flat-out run once she was outside. Running did nothing to erase the image of Annie's broken body lying crumpled on the ground from her memory, but it did get her to the townhouse that Peter, Bella, and Elle shared faster than any available form of public transportation would have. The front door was unlocked - with their powers, the house's occupants weren't much worried about your typical home invaders, and the people they _did_ worry about wouldn't be deterred by a locked door - so Claire went right in and followed the sound of voices to the kitchen, where everyone was gathered around a box of takeout pizza.

Bella, who had left her seat to get more napkins, was the first to see her. "Hey, Claire. You look upset. Is it Annie?"

Claire gave a single sharp nod, then without further preamble announced, "Annie's dead," to the room at large.

"Dead how?" Peter asked, getting up to join the two teenagers. "Here-" he pushed a glass of water into Claire's hands "-calm down, take a deep breath, and start at the beginning."

"Okay." She gulped the water, set the glass on the countertop before it fell out of her shaking hand, and launched into her tale. "When I went into our room all the lights were off, so at first I thought Annie must still be at the mixer. Then I went to close the window, and that's when...when I saw her." She stopped there, feeling hot tears prickle behind her eyes. Bella hugged her.

"So she fell out the window?"

"No, Peter, I don't think so," Bella said, turning to face him while still keeping her arm around Claire. "It would be next to impossible to fall out that window accidentally, unless maybe you leaned your whole upper body out of it."

"The police found a suicide note on her pillow, but I _know_ it wasn't there when I first came in. Besides, Annie wouldn't have killed herself - she had her whole life mapped out for the next thirty years!"

"Somebody else did it, then." Bella's eyes were wide and scared, like the eyes of a trapped deer. "I _told_ you we wouldn't be able to stay hidden from Arthur for long! _I knew it!_"

Peter cut her off before she could get herself any more worked up. "Bella, think about what you're saying. Why would Arthur want to kill Claire's roommate?"

"Because he's a psychopath," she said, as if that explained everything.

Elle, who had remained sitting, calmly eating her pizza slice in a show of indifference - or maybe she really didn't see the murder of Claire's roommate as that big a deal - but was still listening intently, giggled. Claire's expression changed from upset and sad to slightly scared - she hadn't considered the possibility of Arthur's involvement in Annie's death, but it made a certain twisted kind of sense.

Peter sighed. "That's true, but he's also smart. If he knew we were here, why would he tip us off by killing Annie? It'd be more logical for him to just put someone in the room to snatch Claire when she went back there."

"Maybe that's what he tried to do, and Annie walked in on them first, so they killed her-"

"-Which doesn't explain why no one kidnapped me when I did go back," Claire pointed out. She was seriously creeped-out now; if Bella was right, she had narrowly avoided being captured by her megalomaniacal grandfather for the second time in as many months.

Elle swallowed her bite of pizza and finally spoke up. "Arthur's cool commando sidekick got killed, so maybe now he's back to using losers like Flint and Knox. Even you could get away from them, Cheerleader."

"Or maybe he didn't send anyone. I still say he's not behind this," Peter insisted.

Bella wanted desperately to believe him - although she wanted Arthur Petrelli dead she wasn't eager to face off with him again - but wasn't quite ready to discard her pessimistic assumption. "Who else would've done this, then?"

Surprisingly, it was Elle who answered first. "You said this Annie chick was pushy - maybe she really got on somebody's nerves." She glanced at Claire, her lips curling into a sly smile. "Maybe she really got on _your_ nerves."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Just one tiny problem with that brilliant theory, Elle: I don't kill people just 'cause they annoy me...and I never will unless you and I somehow switch personalities."

"So maybe she did commit suicide, then."

"I'm telling you, she didn't! Note or no note, Annie wasn't suicidal!"

"There's a simple way to find out," Bella cut in. "You just compare the note to something Annie wrote and see if the handwriting matches. Didn't the cops do that?"

"Um...I don't think so."

The brunette sighed. "Idiots... Peter, can you get hold of that note?"

"Sure, my shift tomorrow got pushed back two hours. That should give me enough time to break into the police station, steal evidence from an open investigation, and still clock in on time."

###

The next day, while Peter 'borrowed' the suicide note allegedly left by Annie before her plunge out the window, Claire returned to her dorm with Bella and Elle. "We're in luck," Bella observed as they entered Claire's room, ducking under a strand of yellow crime scene tape that had been left across the doorway. "It doesn't look like Annie's folks have come to pick up her stuff yet. Now, where'd she keep her class notes?"

"Organized alphabetically by subject on her bookshelf. Aha! Here's her political-science notebook, and - she'd only been to the class's orientation and already had _ten pages_ of notes?"

"Well, we only need one. Rip it out and let's go," Elle ordered.

Claire hesitated. "I don't know... It feels wrong tearing up her things."

"Why? She doesn't need 'em anymore."

_"Elle!"_

"Well she doesn't."

"It's all right, Claire; you don't have to tear the page out if you don't want to," Bella reassured her.

"But we can't get caught taking her notebook-"

"-Which is why I told Peter to meet us here. Assuming my estimation of how long it'll take him to pull the police station's layout from someone's mind and get into their evidence lockup is right, then he should get here right...about..._now_."

Peter appeared right on cue, holding a single sheet of paper in a gloved hand so that his fingerprints wouldn't be on it when he returned it to the police. "Got it."

Bella rewarded him with one of those glowing, admiration-filled smiles she reserved especially for him. "You rock, Peter."

"Whatever." Their eyes met in a brief look that belied his dismissive tone by showing her exactly how much her approval meant to him; then he laid the purloined piece of paper on Claire's bedspread beside Annie's notebook.

All four of them pressed in close to get a good look at the two handwriting samples. "I'm no expert," Bella said after a moment, "but I'm gonna say there's no way those were written by the same person."

"Both were written by a girl, though."

"How can you tell?" Elle asked.

Peter shrugged. "I don't know - it just looks like a girl's writing is all."

"He's right," Claire mused, tilting her head to see it from a different angle. "Men's writing isn't this...curly."

Elle rolled her eyes. "This is your brilliant deduction? 'Men don't have curly handwriting'? Don't quit your day jobs to be detectives, people."

"Hey, we already know more about this case than the police," Claire defended herself.

"At least until we tell them what we know," Peter added. "But how do we do that...?"

"We don't," Bella said at once. "I mean it, Peter - we keep this to ourselves."

_"What?"_

"We have to. In the first place, we are supposed to be keeping a low profile, which doesn't exactly mesh with being in the middle of a homicide investigation. Second, you cannot just walk into the police station and say you know Annie didn't write that note because you _stole_ it to have a look. They'd arrest you! What happens to me if you get sent to jail, huh? Did you even think of that?"

It was a low blow and they both knew it, but it nevertheless had the desired effect. Peter sounded hurt when he said, "I'm always thinking of you, Bella."

"Then go with me on this."

"Somebody killed this girl, and you want us to let them get away with it?"

"I just don't want to get involved with the cops. We can still look into the murder ourselves, if you want."

"Okay, okay... I'll be late tonight; don't wait up for me."

"Don't flatter yourself," Bella retorted, tiptoeing to kiss him goodbye.

"Thank goodness," Elle stage-whispered to Claire. "I hate it when Mom and Dad fight."

###

Hours later, when Bella's and Claire's respective classes were finally over, the two girls went to the student center's cafeteria. "So you said most of your assigned readings will be Shakespeare, huh? You'll be able to pass that class in your sleep."

"I guess so," Bella said pensively. "But lately I've been wondering if I really want to major in English after all."

"What else would you do?" Claire asked, surprised and even a little shocked; she had never thought of Bella being anything other than an English major.

"Study biology, maybe - so I could understand more about, you know-" she glanced around to make sure there was nobody in earshot of them and lowered her voice "-our kind."

"Great idea - you could be Dr. Suresh's lab assistant."

Bella laughed softly. "Well, I'm not sure that's quite the career path I-" She broke off as a girl she didn't know approached, her newly-acquired wariness of strangers kicking in. Granted, this girl didn't _look_ like the kind of person Arthur Petrelli would employ, but then neither had Flint and Knox - at first glance, they had appeared to be common street thugs.

Claire looked from her nervous best friend to the newcomer who was making her nervous and whispered, "It's fine, Bella - she's just someone I met last night after you left. _Relax_." Then, louder: "Gretchen, hey! What's up?"

"You mean besides the thing with Annie?"

"Yeah, besides that."

"Sorry, girl, that's all anyone's talking about. It's all over campus." Claire groaned and dropped her head into her hands; Gretchen patted her back sympathetically, then turned to Bella. "You must be Claire's sister. Isabella Morgan, right?"

Bella cringed internally - she had no problem with hers and Claire's new alias or status as 'sisters', but Noah using her full name when constructing her new identity...that annoyed her. "Yup, that's me. And you're Gretchen...?"

"Berg," the other brunette supplied. "Nice to meet you. So, Claire, I heard you told the police that Annie's suicide note was a fake-"

"I didn't know the Dartmouth rumor mill worked that fast," Bella muttered.

"You realize that if she didn't jump then she had to have been pushed, right?"

Claire fidgeted. "Well, I, uh... I might've been a little...hasty. I mean, it was dark - I could have just missed the note at first."

"But you don't _think_ you did, do you?" Gretchen pressed.

"I think she just said it was a possibility," Bella noted drily.

"Sure, it's possible - just not probable. Why would someone who'd just pwned practically the whole incoming freshman class at _Guitar Hero_ go home and off themselves?"

"I don't know! We weren't even roommates for a whole day! How should I know what was going on in her head? The police will figure out what happened to her."

"You're just gonna leave it up to them?"

"It _is_ their job to investigate suspicious deaths."

"But don't you want to prove your roommate was defenestrated?" Gretchen demanded.

Claire didn't answer right away. Bella kicked her under the table. Claire sighed. "No, I...I just wanna forget the whole thing. Sorry."


	14. The Problem With Roommates

**Warning: this chapter, while marginally more interesting than the last, contains mentions of one-sided Claire/Gretchen. I apologize if that's not your cup of tea, but unfortunately it's canon so I can't ****completely**** ignore it. **

Chapter 14: The Problem With Roommates

_BPOV_

Over the next week the buzz about Annie's death died down as the student body of Dartmouth reached an unspoken conclusion about it: she had been an overachiever, so she must have suffered from well-hidden fears of failure that had finally caused her to snap. Maybe she'd been afraid she couldn't cut it here. Claire still didn't believe that but couldn't stop people from saying it, because we had failed miserably at finding Annie's killer.

"I hate to say this, Bella," she said on Monday morning as we walked to one of the two classes we shared, "but Elle's right. We suck as detectives."

"Good thing we aren't here to study criminology then. Look, Claire...we haven't found anyone with a motive to hurt Annie, and my theory that it was Arthur trying to get to you got disproved by the fact that it's been days and nobody's bothered us - I think we've hit a dead end. Maybe it's time to do what you told Gretchen you were gonna do, and forget about it."

Claire sighed. "Maybe... Hey, speaking of Gretchen, I was thinking about asking her to be my new roommate. That way you could go home." She had stayed in town with me, Peter, and Elle for a couple days, until Annie's parents arrived to collect their daughter's belongings; once the dorm room was emptied of any trace of Annie, Claire went back to it but hadn't wanted to be alone there, so I'd agreed to stay with her until she found another, permanent roommate.

The news that she (possibly) had pleased me immensely. Not that I wanted to get away from her - of course I didn't - it was more that I wanted to get back to Peter. Being Claire's temporary roomie wasn't keeping me away from him all day or anything; we still saw each other about as much as we had when I lived in Charlie's house, and him on the other side of town. The problem was that since then I had grown accustomed to having him around all the time, being able to curl up with him every night, and now any degree of separation felt like too much. Illogically, I _missed_ him. Still, I had to ask, "Are you sure? The dorm isn't so bad; I can stay longer if you want..."

"No, that's okay. I'll be fine with Gretchen. I appreciate you offering, though."

"What are best friends for?" We smiled at each other, but then my smile faded as a new concern struck me. "You know, I won't be able to shield you anymore if we're that far apart."

Claire rolled her eyes, obviously not sharing my concern. "I can't get hurt, remember - I think I can survive without you protecting me."

"But you can be captured. If Arthur has a locater or precog looking for you-"

"Then I will deal. You, meanwhile, need to deal with your Arthur Petrelli paranoia. I know you're totally justified in having a complex about the guy but - this sounds as insensitive as something our resident walking bug-zapper would say, sorry - I'm a little harder to kill than your dad. You're never getting rid of me, Bella. Deal with it."

###

Gretchen agreed to room with Claire, as I'd expected she would, so that afternoon after classes were over I packed up my clothes and toiletries to make room for her to start moving her stuff in. Elle was just leaving for work by the time I got home, and Peter's shift didn't end for a little while yet; for the moment, I had the house to myself. I began unpacking, humming to fill the silence. Just as I was returning my toothbrush to its customary spot in the bathroom-

"What are you doing here?"

I spun around, lost my always-precarious balance, and started to fall.

Peter moved too fast for my eyes to track him; one minute he was standing in the hallway outside the bathroom, the next he was right beside me, catching my upper arms just in time to save me from cracking my head on the countertop's hard edge. "Trying to get in your head trauma of the day, Bella?"

"Very funny, Peter. If you're gonna be like that, I won't tell you what went down today..." I trailed off teasingly, knowing I'd caught his interest.

"What? Nothing bad, I hope."

"No, nothing bad - in fact it's the opposite of bad. Claire doesn't think she needs me to shield her from psychic detection-"

"So there's no reason for you to stay with her anymore?" He had anticipated what I was about to say exactly, only he made it a question.

"I don't see one now that she's got Gretchen to room with her, so now I'm all yours." I grinned. "Unless you're going to tell me you don't want-"

Peter interrupted me again, this time by kissing me until I was breathless, until his own need for oxygen forced him to pull back. "I'm glad you're all mine."

I nodded in agreement and pressed closer to him. It was good to be home.

###

Over the next couple of days life pretty much returned to normal, apart from the addition of Gretchen Berg. Peter and I both liked her well enough, and Elle liked her a lot - they were both a little offbeat, so it made sense - but sometimes I picked up a weird vibe from her, a feeling that she wanted Claire all to herself. I didn't know what to make of it, and it was slowly driving me crazy.

"I think I'm losing my grip," I told Peter as we walked home one night. "I mean, really."

"Because you think Gretchen's up to no good?"

"'Up to no good' is putting it a little strongly - I just think there's something strange about the way she acts around Claire. She seems...way too interested in her. It's weird." I waited anxiously for Peter to either tell me that he'd noticed it too, or that I really was becoming crazy-paranoid. Instead, he was just amused. I was momentarily stunned, and then I started getting mad. "What? _What_ is so funny? _Stop laughing!_"

I aimed a half-hearted shove at his chest, but he caught my wrist, effortlessly restraining me. "I'm sorry, Bella, I shouldn't have laughed. It's just that Gretchen's behavior isn't that weird if you think about it." He tried to wipe an angry tear out of the corner of my eye; I leaned away from his touch, at least as much as I could with him holding me by the wrist.

"Say something that makes sense or let go of me," I demanded petulantly, scowling up at him.

"Isn't it obvious? She has a crush."

My scowl vanished as I absorbed this information. "Gretchen?"

"Yes."

"Is crushing on _Claire_?"

"Yes. So you see there's nothing sinister going on with her."

"Oh. _Oh._ But Claire doesn't like girls that way...does she?" I was confused and slightly panicked - how could I not have known something like that about the person who was supposed to be my best friend?

"Not as far as I know - and since I can hear her thoughts, I know a lot."

For a split second I was relieved; then something else occurred to me. "Poor Gretchen. She thinks she's got a chance with her, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Peter said awkwardly. "Now can we please not talk about this anymore?"

I didn't say another word on the subject, but I couldn't stop turning it over in my mind. On one hand, it was good to know Gretchen didn't have some nefarious purpose in getting closer to Claire - it had even crossed my mind once or twice that she might have pushed Annie out of the window in order to do so, but of course if she had Peter probably would have gathered as much from her thoughts; she was certainly around enough to give him the opportunity. But now it appeared that Gretchen Berg wasn't a psychopathic killer, just a regular girl...who happened to have a crush on my best friend. The question was, now that I knew, what was I going to do about it?

As a best friend, I was ninety-percent positive it fell under my job description to tell Claire, but how? Walking up to her and saying 'oh, by the way, your roommate has a thing for you. Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, since you're both girls - just thought you oughta know!' might work if I had Elle's brash personality, but unfortunately I didn't; I wouldn't be able to get half the words out before dying of embarrassment. Anyway, what if Claire didn't _want_ to be told? This information was bound to make things tense between her and her new friend when it got out; if I was the one to let the figurative cat out of the bag, she might get mad at me. Or she might get madder if I kept it to myself.

_Life was so much simpler when I was a loner with no close friends. Hell, life was simpler when my friends were vampires! At least they didn't have any complicated romantic entanglements to deal with..._

###

Claire emerged from her final class of the day, political science, accompanied by a girl I had seen before but didn't know by name. "I'll see you there, right?" the girl was saying.

"Absolutely," Claire agreed. "See ya."

"Where's she going to see you, exactly?" Gretchen asked when Claire joined us. "Who is she, anyway?"

"Her name's Becky Taylor, aka the girl who borrowed my notes a while back and finally returned them today. She invited me to a party at her boyfriend's fraternity house this weekend," Claire explained.

"And you said you'd go?"

"Sure, why not?" Gretchen looked like she could think of several reasons, but Claire went on before she could voice any of them. "You'll both come with, right?"

I immediately began searching for an excuse not to. "Uh, Claire...wouldn't you rather try to hook up with some guy than go there and hang out with us? You can do that any old time."

Gretchen flinched as if I'd slapped her, reminding me forcefully of what Peter had told me the previous night. I bit down on my tongue, wondering how I could've been so insensitive to her feelings. Then again, it wasn't _entirely_ my fault; finally fed up with my preoccupation over an issue that he thought was really none of my concern, Peter had taken it on himself to direct my attention elsewhere - and he was very good at doing that. By the time he'd finished 'distracting' me, I'd forgotten all about Claire and Gretchen; in fact I'd forgotten everything except...

"What's the matter with you?"

It took me a moment to realize Claire was talking to me, another to realize I had no idea what she was talking about. "Huh?"

"Your face is turning red."

"Maybe she has a fever," Gretchen suggested.

"No, I don't! It's hot, that's all." I fanned myself with a notebook.

Claire rolled her eyes; it wasn't over seventy-two degrees. "Whatever, Bella. So, yes or no? Say yes."

"Yes," I said automatically, still flustered.

Claire turned to Gretchen, looking thunderstruck. "You know, I think you were right. She _must_ be running a fever."

_Saturday evening_

I hesitated outside the door, steeling myself. I didn't want to do this, but I had no choice. I'd gotten myself into this thanks to my big mouth, and now I had to go through with it, or Claire would be very upset with me. The thought of fighting with my best friend was all it took to make me raise my fist and knock.

"Come in."

I pushed the door open and shuffled inside. Elle was splayed out on her bed, lying on her stomach, reading a magazine full of the latest Hollywood gossip; it must have been interesting, because she didn't so much as glance up when I entered. "I...I need your help with something."

"Want me to fry somebody for you?" There hadn't been an opportunity for Elle to use her powers on anyone in quite some time, which she apparently found frustrating; she sounded just a little too eager.

"No, no, nothing like that," I hurriedly assured her, and could swear her face fell slightly. "I need advice on what to wear...to a frat party." I grimaced as the words left my mouth.

Elle dropped her magazine, bounded up into a kneeling position, and hit me with the strongest blast she could muster. I physically shielded myself just in time, allowing her lightning bolts to crackle harmlessly over my skin, but the force of her attack still sent me stumbling backward into her dresser. "What the hell are you doing!"

She slowly stopped generating electricity, watching me with narrowed eyes. "There's no way Bella Swan would ever set foot in a frat party, so I thought you must be a pod person - but someone who shapeshifted into other people wouldn't be able to mimic your shielding ability, so I guess you're you after all."

"Of course I'm me!" I snapped indignantly. "And I _don't_ wanna go to any stupid party, but unfortunately I promised. So are you gonna help me find something to wear or what?"

"Okay, okay - keep your panties on. When you bought new clothes after your old ones burned up, did you happen to pick out anything more fashionable than something your average homeless person might wear?"

I resented that; my preferred jeans and t-shirts might be blah, but no way did I resemble a street person - especially since my current wardrobe was still relatively new. "Um...I have a pair of black jeans."

"Great, now you just need something to wear with them." Elle thumbed through the clothes hanging in her closet and, after much deliberation, pulled out a top made of sheer black material and a matching camisole. "Try this on." I did, but Elle didn't stop there; once I was dressed, she dragged me to the bathroom and forcibly applied makeup, shocking me when I squirmed or protested - it only worked one time, after which I kept myself shielded, but once was enough to convince me that resistance was futile. "There," she said at last, turning me toward the mirror. "What do you think?"

My nose wrinkled as I examined my reflection. "I think I look goth-y. Did you have to use such dark eyeliner?"

"Yes, Bella. You don't want a bunch of drunk frat boys hitting on you, do you?"

"No..."

"Then it'll help if you look mysterious and unapproachable."

"All right...and will you look at the time? I'd better get going."

Right on cue, I heard a car pulling up outside and smiled. Claire might get me into a few situations I'd rather avoid, but she had impeccable timing.

###

The place wasn't at all like what I'd expected a fraternity's headquarters would be, which, since I'd been imagining something similar to a Victorian-era opium den, was not really surprising. But no, this was just a normal house, albeit one with a lot more bedrooms than most, louder music, and beer cans littering almost every available surface.

We were barely inside the door before Becky spotted us and came over, smiling broadly. "Claire! I'm so glad you made it!" Then her eyes flicked over me and Gretchen. "And you brought your sister and roommate," she added in a somewhat flatter tone.

"Great!" A large, muscular guy who I supposed must be Becky's boyfriend slung his arm around her shoulders, grinning toothily at us. "Drinks, ladies?"

Claire shrugged and took the beer he offered her.

"No thanks, I don't drink," I said when a second can was held out to me. "Have you got anything else?"

"I think I saw some chips and dip over there-" the guy pointed to a card table set up next to a wall "-assuming my brothers haven't already eaten 'em all."

"Cool - we haven't eaten. C'mon, Claire." Gretchen grabbed Claire's hand and tugged her toward the snack table.

"I'm not all that hungry... Oh, okay," Claire muttered as she gave in to the pressure on her arm and followed Gretchen.

I trailed after them, flashing a quick smile at Becky and her boyfriend which he returned full force. Becky attempted to do the same, but it didn't quite reach her eyes; in fact, I could have sworn they were almost cold as she looked at me. I shivered, struck by a sudden feeling that Becky Taylor didn't like me very much. Maybe she was annoyed that Claire had brought me with her. Now I thought about it, she hadn't seemed at all pleased to see Gretchen either.

_What's up with that? _I wondered. _Was Claire supposed to come alone? Why would Becky want her to, though?_ There couldn't be two girls at Dartmouth who wanted _my_ best friend all to themselves; besides, I was pretty sure Becky didn't like Claire _that_ way. She had a boyfriend, for crying out loud!

Distracted and not having Peter to snap me out of it this time, I drifted aimlessly through the cavernous den/rec room until a hand fastened on my arm. "What's up with you?" Claire asked. At my quizzical look she elaborated, "You were in zombie-Bella mode."

"Nothing's wrong," I lied, not wanting to ruin the night with my unfounded misgivings about Becky. Then, before Claire could question me further, I snatched a handful of carrot sticks from the snack table and crammed them in my mouth. Her eyebrows shot up. "'M hungry," I mumbled.

Luckily for me, some guy chose that moment to ask Claire to dance, and I slipped away to join Gretchen, who was standing by the wall holding a stack of chips in a napkin. "Don't you want to dance? I hear people like to do that at parties."

"Well, I make a point of deviating from the norm. Kinda like you - I see you're not dancing either."

"I can't. Too uncoordinated."

Gretchen nodded as if to say she'd expected as much. We stood there munching our snacks, neither of us speaking...until a soft scraping noise from above caught my attention. "What's that?"

"What?" Gretchen clearly hadn't heard anything over the pounding bass issuing from four-foot-tall speakers in every corner of the room.

"That noise..." I looked up, trying to pinpoint the source. Directly above the spot where Gretchen and I stood was the open upper level of the house, enclosed by a wooden banister, but I saw nothing that could be making the strange scraping sound. The second floor appeared empty apart from a heavy-looking coat-rack...yet even as I watched, the coat-rack tilted forward, balanced on the banister for a split second, then tumbled over, falling straight toward us...

**Next chapter: the gang finds out who's behind the attacks on Claire's friends (though everyone who watched season 4 should be way ahead of them) and a new villain makes his first appearance, because you can never have too many villains. **


	15. Becky

**So it's been over a month since I updated *sigh*. The reason: our computer (with the beginnings of this chapter on it) quit functioning after being struck by lightning, and I was so demoralized that it took me a while to begin work on it again. BUT, I have finally finished ch15! And there are no femslashy undertones, so you can read it without worry. **

Chapter 15: Becky

_BPOV_

Reacting instinctively, I threw up a physical shield over our heads. The falling piece of furniture hit it and hovered impossibly in midair…until I realized that my powers were about to be exposed in front of a roomful of people. Then I quickly cancelled the shield while tackling Gretchen, sending us both sprawling out of harm's way. The coat-rack crashed down on the spot where we'd been standing a moment ago and splintered.

In the next minute at least a dozen people swarmed around us, their voices blending into an unintelligible anxious buzz as they all asked if we were hurt, tried clumsily to check us for injuries, and help us up at the same time. I wanted to ask them to back off, give us a little space and quit _grabbing_ at me – but someone else beat me to it.

"Will you all back _off_!" Claire said loudly as she elbowed her way through the ring of people surrounding me and Gretchen. "You're not gonna help by trampling them!" I had seldom been so grateful to my best friend. When she was finally able to reach us, Claire gave both me and her roommate a quick but thorough once-over and asked, "Do you hurt anywhere?"

I shook my head no, but Gretchen said that the back of hers hurt. She gingerly probed under her hair with her fingertips and winced. "I think I feel swelling. That can't be good."

"Do you feel dizzy or nauseous?" Claire wanted to know.

"N-no…"

"Then it's just a bump. Put some ice on it and you should be fine. Come on, let's get you back to our room." She took Gretchen's arm and led her away, seemingly taking it for granted that I would follow them, which of course I did. I was only here because of Claire; if she was leaving, I wasn't about to stay without her.

We had almost succeeded in making our exit when Becky Taylor popped up out of nowhere, blocking our way. "Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe what happened! You guys weren't hurt, were you?"

"Gretchen hit her head," Claire answered for us. "Bella and I are taking her to get some ice for it. She'll be okay."

"That's good." Something about Becky's expression of relief felt…off. Insincere. I squinted at the girl, wondering what it was about her that set my teeth on edge. "You know, we have ice here. You don't have to leave just because of one little accident."

"Sorry, I think I do," Claire said firmly. "It kinda killed my party mood. See you in class Monday."

###

Gretchen slowly lay down on her bed, grimacing as the wet chill of the cold compress under her head soaked through her hair to her sensitive scalp.

"Feel better now?"

"I think so – at least the pain's going away."

"Great. You should be back to a hundred percent in the morning." Claire started to get up, but Gretchen grabbed her arm, holding her back.

"Claire, I… This is going to sound crazy, all right, I _know_ it sounds crazy…but when that coat-rack was falling toward us, I swear it just _stopped_ for a minute, like it had hit something. But there wasn't anything there to stop it." Gretchen looked downright scared, obviously afraid she was having hallucinations.

Claire's eyes widened; I could almost hear her brain whirring as she scrambled for a plausible explanation. "Well, you were scared. Sometimes that can cause your mind to process what you're seeing in slow-motion. Isn't that right, Bella?"

"Yeah, I-I read something like that somewhere. Absolutely." I sounded totally unconvincing to my own ears, but Gretchen seemed to buy it. Her eyes slid shut, and within moments her breathing had evened out and slowed.

Claire slipped off her bed, careful not to disturb her, and headed for the door. As she passed the place where I stood leaning against the desk she threw me a sharp look that said, _We need to talk._

I followed her out into the hall, waited for her to close the door so Gretchen wouldn't overhear us, then jumped to defend myself. "All right, I put up a shield. It was pure instinct, but what'd you want me to do? Let us get brained? That thing was heavy!"

"No, of course I'm not saying you should've let it hit you, it's just- People could've noticed, Bella! You could've got caught!"

"But I didn't," I pointed out. "Even if anyone had seen it who didn't believe their eyes were just playing tricks, there's no way for them to connect it with _me_. Anyway, I don't think anyone noticed except Gretchen."

Claire sighed. "I hated having to lie to her." She glanced nervously at the closed door as if expecting Gretchen to burst through it at any moment, hurling accusations.

Knowing what I did about Gretchen's feelings for Claire, I decided a subtle test of Claire's feelings was in order. "Maybe you shouldn't have. You could have told her the truth – if you really wanted to, I mean."

"Is this some kind of trick question, or test or something? Bella, you know I would never tell anyone about you. And if you think I would, you need some serious paranoia therapy."

This wasn't the response I was looking for. "Whoa, whoa! I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just saying… Well, haven't you thought about telling her? About all of us, I mean, not just me. She is your friend, after all."

"Oh." Claire paused to think it over. "I haven't really thought about it. When I first started hanging with you it was different – Peter and I were almost positive you were one of us, so it was easy to tell you everything. Gretchen is…she's just a normal person, and she thinks I'm normal-"

"-And you'd like to keep it that way."

"I guess so. Maybe it's just that I don't know the best way to go about spilling the biggest secret of my life." Claire shrugged uncomfortably, then abruptly switched to a different tack. "What's with the heart-to-heart third degree anyway? Shouldn't we be braiding each other's hair while we do this?"

In my mind, this clinched it. Peter had once told me that if you were in love with someone, you would trust them enough to let them in completely, let them know everything about you. Claire didn't feel that strongly about Gretchen. Now that my curiosity had been satisfied, I was happy to drop it. I batted Claire's hands away as she reached for a hank of my hair and began dividing it into sections. "No. No way. Elle has already used up my quota of patience for playing dress-up tonight."

"I know – and how unfair is it that I missed that? You look great, though." She laughed when I made a face. "You're going to wipe off that makeup and get out of those clothes first thing when you get home, aren't you? Well, after you let Peter know you survived."

"There's no rush; he can't have heard about the accident yet."

"But it's the kind of thing he'd _want_ to hear about, don't you think?"

"Yeah, he would."

###

On my way home I had convinced myself that telling Peter could wait till morning, that there was no reason to wake him up just to give him bad news – only to find that he hadn't gone to bed yet. Whether he was waiting for me or just wanted to catch up on his reading, I was pleased to see him.

He heard me coming and looked up just before I took the book out of his hands, set it aside, and curled into his lap. "I thought you'd be later than this," he remarked, dispensing with the usual greetings.

"I thought so too, but stuff happened." I filled him in on the falling coat-rack incident, ending with, "And right after it happened, when I looked up there, I didn't see anyone on the second floor, but I…sensed something. I think maybe Claire and I weren't the only ones with abilities in that frat house."

"Really?" Peter shifted, sitting up straighter; I grumbled as his movement forced me to reposition myself accordingly. "What kind of power did you sense?"

"I don't know – it was hard to focus, what with nearly having been crushed and all those people fussing over me." I frowned, annoyed that their distraction had hindered my concentration. Now I couldn't give Peter anything better than half-formed impressions and guesswork. "It was something I've seen you do before, I'm almost sure of it – not an empathic mimic like you, whoever it was they were nowhere near that powerful – but like one of the secondary abilities you've absorbed."

Peter absently ran his hand up and down my side as he considered this, not even noticing when my pajama tank top rode up over my stomach. "To do what you described, it would've had to be telekinesis…or an invisible person."

"Hmm…" His fingertips running over my ribs were making it very difficult to focus on our conversation. "Can we pick this up tomorrow? It's late."

"Okay." Peter slid an arm under my legs and effortlessly lifted me, carried me to our room, and put me down on the bed.

"You're still thinking about it, aren't you?" I observed as I watched him turn out the lights; he was clearly preoccupied.

"Somebody just tried to hurt my girlfriend – that's not something I can just blow off."

I sighed. "I shouldn't have told you. I knew you'd take it badly." He started to say something but I held up a hand, cutting him off. "Which is totally understandable, because I'd react exactly the same way if someone had tried to hurt you. I'm not asking you to blow it off, okay, I'm just saying don't worry about it right now. I'm perfectly safe for tonight anyway."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because you're here, and I know you would never let anything hurt me."

Instead of confirming this verbally, he pulled me close and pressed his lips against mine in a kiss that made me melt and told me everything he was feeling better than any words could have. "I love you, Bella."

"Kiss me again," I ordered breathlessly.

Peter's right hand gripped the back of my neck, holding me securely while we kissed. His tongue flicked over my lower lip and I relaxed my jaw, allowing him access to my mouth. When we broke apart a long moment later, it was clear I had succeeded in getting his mind off superpowered assailants for the time being.

It was only later, as I was on the brink of falling asleep, that I realized a person with telekinesis or invisibility could easily have pushed Annie out her window. The thought jarred me awake at once. Feeling me stiffen beside him, Peter asked, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." I checked to make sure he was completely shut out of my mind and forced my body to relax.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Just a nightmare."

Peter accepted the fib – I certainly had nightmares often enough to make it plausible – and went back to sleep. I wished I could do the same, but my brain refused to shut down. I lay awake for half an hour, reflecting that while we may have found Annie's killer at last, we were no closer to actually identifying him or her. Still, I was confident we would eventually be able to – intuition told me we hadn't seen the last of our unseen attacker. I fell asleep smiling at my own pun.

###

I shared my deductions with Peter in the morning, then went across the hall to tell Elle while he got Claire on the phone. Their reactions were predictable: Claire was distressed and angry that someone was apparently fixated on attacking her roommates, and Elle volunteered to 'make sure they never bothered us again'.

"That's nice, Elle, but we have to find them first."

"Then let me stay close to you today in case they try something else. Peter really likes his job so he won't wanna call in sick, but I don't care if I miss mine."

"I don't think-"

"Great idea," Peter interrupted. "Thanks, Elle."

She smiled brightly, chirped, "You're welcome," and waltzed off to the kitchen in search of food.

"That was unnecessary," I said once she was out of earshot. "I don't need a protection detail – though if it was you offering to be my bodyguard I wouldn't object."

"I know you don't need it, but you know how Elle is when she doesn't get her way. Besides, after spending most of her life with the Company adjusting to civilian life hasn't been easy for her, and this'll give her something to do that's more up her alley."

"So…I'm now Elle's personal entertainment." I considered this for a moment, brightening as a new thought hit me. "Last night's attack was aimed at me _and_ Gretchen – maybe I can convince Elle that she needs protecting more than I do."

"But Elle doesn't particularly care about Gretchen."

I glared at Peter. "I don't blow holes in your plans, do I?"

###

"I'm bored," Elle whined. It was mid-afternoon, and so far the day had passed uneventfully. "Here I am, trying to be a good friend, 'protecting' you, and nobody's tried to kill you all day!"

A passing couple looked at her strangely.

"Would you keep your voice down?" Claire hissed. "And maybe try to sound a little less disappointed?"

"But I'm _bored_," Elle repeated plaintively.

"You could always go find something more exciting to do," I offered. Behind Elle's back, Claire shook her head franticly; she felt that Elle's version of 'exciting activities' might be dangerous to the town of Hanover.

"Yeah right. Remember what happened last time I was supposed to watch you and let my guard down? I won't make that mistake again."

"Shh!" Claire said suddenly, her eyes on the small campus Starbucks where Gretchen had stopped for an after-class Frappuccino.

"Hey guys," Gretchen said cheerfully as she joined us. "Are we still on for that movie marathon at your place tonight? I picked up _Underworld_ and _Van Helsing _earlier."

I wondered if it was just a coincidence that both of those movies featured vampires and werewolves, or if the universe loved making me the butt of its jokes.

We were almost into our neighborhood and had just met Peter when it happened. One minute Gretchen was right beside Claire on the sidewalk, the next she was tumbling into the street in front of an oncoming car. I paused just long enough to be sure Peter was going to save her from being run over, then turned my attention to searching for whatever had pushed her into the street. Free of outside distractions, I was now able to determine that we were dealing with an invisible person and block their power.

To my great surprise, it was Becky Taylor who came into view. What was going on? I had thought she was a friend of Claire's; why was she doing this? A quick look at Claire told me she was as stunned and mystified as me.

Becky, realizing we could see her, turned and ran, but she didn't get far. Elle fired an electrical bolt that hit her in the back and sent her crumpling to the ground; then she crossed the two or three yards between them and zapped Becky again, this time on the back of the neck, knocking her out. "Sends the electricity straight into the brainstem," she explained after checking Becky's pulse to make sure she was only unconscious. "What's up with you two?"

"I… We know that girl," Claire said in a hushed voice. "I have poli-sci with her. I never knew she was… Why did she…?"

"I'll make her tell us," Elle promised before turning her steely gaze back to the unconscious girl.

At that moment I felt a rush of telepathic power from Peter; the driver had gotten out and tried to apologize for almost hitting him and Gretchen, but then he'd noticed the dent in his car where Peter had physically stopped it – evidently his brakes hadn't done the job – so Peter had to erase his memory of the incident.

"I'm gonna go home and forget this ever happened," the man said a little dazedly, obviously repeating Peter's telepathic command, "and get my brakes checked."

Peter dismissed him, satisfied that the problem was taken care of, then shifted his attention to Gretchen. "Are you hurt?"

She backed away from him. "I-I just saw you stop that car with your bare hands, and you're asking if _I'm_ hurt? What _are _you?" Then she noticed Becky. "And what happened to _her_?"

Claire put a hand on Gretchen's shoulder, which was probably the only reason she didn't run away right then. "We have to take her home with us, and when we get there I'll explain everything."

###

"So you all have these…powers?"

"That's right."

Gretchen nodded shakily. "Okay, that part I can almost deal with. But why did Becky try to kill me?"

"I don't know-"

"-But we're about to find out," Elle cut Claire off. "She's waking up."

When we got home, the first thing Elle had done was tie Becky to a chair. When she came to, Becky quickly realized she couldn't move; then she instinctively tried to turn invisible, only to realize she couldn't do that either. "Let me go!" she angrily demanded.

"Oh, we will," Elle assured her. "Right after you tell us why you've been attacking Bella and Gretchen and…what's-her-face."

"Annie," Claire supplied.

"Annie fell," Becky said coldly.

"With a little help from you." Elle zapped her. "And now you know what happens when you lie to us."

Becky said nothing. Elle hit her again. "Tell us everything you've done, and why."

"All right, all right! I pushed Annie, I tried to make that coat-rack fall on Gretchen and Isabella, and I pushed Gretchen into the street today." Elle gathered another charge in her hand. "That's it, I swear!"

"Why'd you do it?" Elle zapped her a second time. Becky screamed.

"She was going to answer you," Peter said sharply. "You don't need to do that."

Elle grinned at him. "I know I don't _need_ to."

Gretchen fidgeted, as if she wanted nothing more than to run out of the room. Peter glanced my way, silently asking me to use my inexplicable influence over Elle.

"Elle," I said softly, "no more zapping unless she refuses to cooperate, okay?"

Elle huffed and pouted, but sulkily agreed.

Claire repeated Elle's question. "Why did you do it, Becky? I know Annie was pushy, but she wasn't _that_ bad, and Bella and Gretchen never did anything to you."

"It wasn't about them," Becky said scornfully. "It was always about you."

Claire's eyes went very wide. _"Me?"_

"They were always with you; I knew I couldn't capture you until they were out of the way."

"Why did you want to capture Claire?" Peter asked.

Becky glared at him, mouth tightly closed – until Elle took a threatening step forward. Then she started talking, practically spitting the words at Claire. "Your father killed my dad when I was only seven years old! I've waited a long time to get back at him, and when I saw you together on your first day at Dartmouth I knew I had finally found the way to get to him. I would've gone after your sister too, except that he didn't seem as close to her."

"No, Noah and I aren't close at all," I said automatically; then, noticing the curious looks from Becky and Gretchen, I scrambled to cover up the minor hole I had torn in our cover story. "Claire's family just sort of took me in after mine…died in a fire." It was true enough to be believed, but saying it made me slightly choky.

Peter put his arm around me and telepathically nudged at my mental shields, which I immediately lowered. _I'm sorry, Bella. You shouldn't have said anything – if they got suspicious I could've just made them forget it. _

_That's sweet, but you don't need to start erasing memories just to make me feel better. I just want to get this over with – what do we do with Becky anyway? _

_ You disable her power permanently and we let her go, or we call Noah to come pick her up. Given her history with him, that just might qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. _ The feelings behind Peter's thought-speak showed that the idea didn't much bother him; he might have objected to Elle torturing Becky on principle, but after last night's attack on me he didn't feel too kindly toward her.

_Let me talk to her. _ "Becky-" My voice shook. I cleared my throat and tried again. "You've noticed you can't turn invisible; that's because I've blocked your power, and I can make the effect permanent. Now that we're onto you and you don't have your ability, if we let you go, will you leave us alone or keep coming after us?"

"Well, there doesn't seem to be much I can do to you."

"There really isn't," Elle told her, a slight taunting note in her voice.

_End BPOV_

After being released, it took Becky Taylor several hours to accept that her ability really was gone, and then she began planning her next move. Her revenge on Noah Bennet would have to be postponed until she had her invisibility back – she had no chance against him without it. Luckily she knew exactly who to call for help.

"Hello, Rebecca," he greeted her when he finally picked up. "Did you finish what you set out to do?"

"No. Claire Bennet has a sister I didn't know about, and she took away my power."

Becky heard a sharp intake of breath over the phone. "Took away your power? And how'd she manage to do that?"

"I don't know! She's one of us; so is her boyfriend, and there's another girl with them who controls electricity – you _really_ don't want to get on the wrong side of her. I'm in over my head here. I need your help."

"Of course, Rebecca – what's family for? Stay away from them till we get there; leave everything to me."

"Thanks, Uncle Samuel."

**Next chapter: Samuel serves as a plot device to separate Bella from her friends for the author's nefarious purposes. Also, I'm aware that there's been a lack of Arthur and Danko action, but I assure you I haven't forgotten them and I am planning a resolution to their part of the story…as well as the parts with Edward and Sylar…and now my head hurts!**


	16. Dark Carnival

**First, I'm sorry for not updating in so long; my excuse this time is major writer's block on this story. Second, I think there'll be a total of 25-30 chapters, if anyone's wondering. Third...um...enjoy the chapter!**

Chapter 16: Dark Carnival

Waking up earlier than she wanted to, Claire's first reaction was to bury her head under her pillow before it occurred to her to wonder about the soft thumping sounds that had woken her. She pushed the pillow aside, sat up, looked around, and saw Gretchen stuffing her clothes into a bag. "Gretchen? What're you doing?"

Gretchen jumped and spun around. Her face had the pinched, tired look left over from a sleepless night, her hair hadn't been brushed, and she wasn't wearing any makeup. "Claire! I...um..."

"You're packing. Are you going somewhere?"

"Yeah, I...I'm going home. What happened yesterday was just a little too crazy for me."

Claire was too surprised to protest with any real force, and she could understand Gretchen's desire to get away, but felt she ought to say something anyway. "But Becky's not a threat anymore. You wouldn't be in danger if you stayed. We'd protect you."

"And what happens if Becky has friends like yours, with more dangerous powers than turning invisible? Or what if she doesn't give up and just buys a gun or something? Anyway, I don't want to be protected. I'd rather not have anyone trying to kill me in the first place!"

"So you're leaving just in case Becky knows other homicidal specials or decides to start packing heat?"

"I'm scared, okay! And, Claire...after watching Elle electrocute Becky and _enjoy_ it, and Peter stopping that car and controlling the driver's mind like it was nothing...well, Becky wasn't the only reason I couldn't sleep last night."

"Well if you have a problem with my friends, then you're right - you _should_ leave." Claire's voice sounded cold and hard to her own ears but she didn't care; if she had to choose between Gretchen Berg and the three people who had become her best friends in the world - her family, even - there was no contest. _Besides, if Gretchen's uncomfortable with Peter and Elle she'd probably be scared of me too, eventually. It's better that she leaves now, before I get too attached to her. _

Gretchen was gone within the hour and Claire, deciding that finding a new roommate would be too much hassle, notified the campus housing supervisor that she was moving out of the dorm. Peter and Bella had repeatedly assured her that she was welcome to move in with them any time she wanted (Elle had reluctantly conceded that it would be okay so long as she and Claire didn't have to share a room), and she was finally going to take them up on their offer.

_Later that day_

Samuel Sullivan got out of his trailer, looked around at the quiet town of Hanover, New Hampshire, and took an instant dislike to the place. It reeked of the carefully ordered society he had spent so much of his life trying to escape, and he hated having to be here, but he had to help his 'niece'. No leader ever kept his followers by failing to come through for them when they needed him.

Becky was already there waiting for him, and she rushed forward to give him a hug. "Uncle Samuel! Thank you so much for coming."

Samuel smiled. "You know I would do anything for my family, Rebecca." In addition to ensuring that Becky stayed loyal to him, this little venture would also give Samuel a chance to recruit four new members.

"So what's your plan for getting Isabella Morgan to undo what she did to me?" Becky had been deprived of her powers for less than a full twenty-four hours but had already decided she didn't like it one little bit.

"I'm sure I can convince her if I can get a moment alone with the girl. You know I can be...persuasive." Samuel assembled the 'family' and instructed them to set up the carnival; it was the perfect setup to lure the girl in, and if she brought her friends it would be easy to separate her from them once she was inside. "You see, Rebecca, you'll have your powers back in no time."

_27 hours later_

_BPOV_

As I took in the crowds, bright lights, and high noise level of the Sullivan Brothers' Carnival, the only thought on my mind was, _The things I do for my friends._ Claire had been somewhat dejected since Gretchen's sudden departure yesterday morning and needed her mind taken off her ex-roommate, and Elle had never been to a carnival before, so I had reluctantly allowed them to talk me into coming here. I even let Claire dress me up in a miniskirt and lacy yellow spaghetti-strap top because apparently altering my look was fun, and because she had the sense not to go overboard.

She and Elle were riding a Ferris wheel at the moment, leaving me alone with Peter. "How's Claire doing? I know she _says_ she's fine, but..."

"She's okay. Of course she's a little sad that we scared Gretchen away, but they hadn't known each other very long so she wasn't that attached to her. She'll be all right."

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Good."

"What's good?"

The familiar voice made me jump; in an effort to relax and have fun I had, just for tonight, stopped consciously projecting my mental shields or trying to sense any nearby specials, and Claire had taken advantage of this to sneak up on me.

She laughed at my reaction. "Did I scare you?"

"That is the usual result when you creep up behind someone," I said tersely. "So how was the Ferris wheel?"

"Okay, except for the part where Elle kept grabbing me."

"I did not!"

"You did. She freaks out on planes too," Claire told me and Peter, "but I didn't think the Ferris wheel would bother her. It isn't nearly as high off the ground."

I couldn't understand why Claire seemed so cheerful - if it were me on the receiving end of the glare she was getting from Elle, I would have been running. Luckily about five minutes of me keeping myself between her and Claire was all she needed to cool down - or possibly she was just distracted by the sight of her distorted reflection in a funhouse mirror. "Ooh, I've gotta go in there!"

She darted inside faster than I could say, "Elle, wait up!" almost knocking over a carnival worker.

"I'm so sorry about that," Claire apologized as she steadied the older man. "She's a little over-excitable."

"Is she prone to epileptic seizures or panic attacks?"

"No..."

"Then it's fine. And yourselves?" We assured him that none of us had a problem with seizures or panic attacks, and he waved us into the Hall of Mirrors. "Good luck. I hope you find what you're searching for."

"Weird guy," Peter commented. "It shouldn't be _that_ hard to find Elle..." A cloud of purplish mist billowed up around us, obscuring everything more than a foot in front of us. "Maybe I spoke too soon."

A burst of weirdly echoing maniacal laughter made me shiver. "I hope not. This place gives me the creeps."

"It's just a recording and fog machines - smoke and mirrors. And that guy," Peter added as a plastic skeleton dropped from the ceiling right in front of Claire.

She yelped in surprise and batted it away. I considered it karmic payback for her startling me earlier. "Hey Claire, I think he likes you."

She pretended to appraise the fake skeleton before saying, "Nah, he's not my type."

We continued to look for Elle, but it wasn't easy; the sporadic bursts of multicolored fog and trick mirrors made the place almost impossible to navigate. Just when we started to suspect that we were going in circles, the Hall of Mirrors was suddenly plunged into darkness. I instinctively reached for Peter's hand...and found only empty air.

I scowled; if this was part of the carnival experience, I could do without it. "Peter? Claire? Do you have any idea what's going on...?" There was no answer, no comforting sense of my friends' presence. It was as if they had disappeared when the lights went out. "Peter! Claire! Where are you?"

They still didn't answer me, but this time a blinding white light came on. I threw a hand up to shield my eyes. When I was able to see again, I was deeply unsettled to find myself alone. Teleportation was the only way Peter and Claire could have left so quickly and soundlessly, but I knew he would never willingly leave me behind. Equally disturbing, I had a strong feeling that I was being watched. "Hello! Who's there?"

One of the huge mirrors lining the walls came free with a loud metallic screech - and fell toward me! I scrambled to get out of its way, then kept running through the maze of narrow, twisty mirrored halls until I finally found my way out of the funhouse. There was a man standing outside the entrance; I nearly ran right past before recognizing him as the guy who had welcomed us to his carnival earlier this evening: Samuel Sullivan, the owner. Maybe he could help me. I doubled back and grabbed his sleeve. "Mr. Sullivan!"

"Are you all right, miss?"

I shook my head franticly. "No, I...I was in that Hall of Mirrors place with my boyfriend and sister...we were looking for someone...then the lights went out and a mirror almost fell on me, and I can't find them anywhere! It's like they just vanished!"

"Is that so?" His face showed obvious concern. "I'll get someone on that right away... Edgar! Damien! See if you can fix the Hall of Mirrors and make sure no one's been hurt in there, will you? And you - come with me." He took my arm and pulled me away.

"I should really stay here," I protested.

"Nonsense. Edgar and Damien will let me know if they find your friends; in the meantime, you look like you need to sit down." Sullivan led me to a trailer on the outer edge of the fairgrounds, which I supposed must be his personal quarters. "Welcome to my humble home, Miss Morgan. Would you like something to drink? Tea? Soda?"

"No thank you." I was too worried about Peter, Claire, and Elle to drink anything, and my utter cluelessness as to what could have happened to them was driving me crazy. "Mr. Sullivan, I really-"

"You know, this place may not seem like much from the outside, but it's home to all of us who live and work here," he rambled, plainly not listening to a word I said.

I suddenly wished I hadn't gone with him - he didn't seem very interested in helping me at all - but tried to carry on the conversation just to be polite. "I didn't think you really lived anywhere. Don't you travel from place to place?"

"We do, but that's how we like it. You never realize how much conventional life ties you down until you break free of it."

"How nice for you," I said tonelessly. I'd experienced something of the lifestyle he described when we'd had to go on the run from Arthur, and I didn't find living in a car and a string of motels very liberating.

Our increasingly pointless talk was interrupted by a knock from outside the trailer. "Excuse me for one moment."

I looked for another exit, hoping that maybe I could slip out while his back was turned, but no such luck. Resigned to making more small talk with my 'host', I returned my attention to him. He was standing in the open doorway, speaking in an undertone to whoever was outside; it sounded like he was arguing with them. I could push my way past him and be out of here, politeness be damned...

"Oh, all right," he said, louder now. "Come on in." He stepped aside, and in came..._Becky Taylor?_

I stumbled backward, astonished to see _her_ of all people. "You... What are you doing here?"

"This is my home - my _real_ home. Hasn't Uncle Samuel explained it to you?"

"I was getting there." He squeezed her shoulder in a manner that was probably meant to be affectionate but just looked slightly creepy to me. Now I was starting to wonder whether this whole 'carnival' wasn't actually some bizarre cult. _How do I always get into messes like this?_

"We're all family here," he went on, "so when Rebecca called and said she needed help, of course we all came to lend a hand."

"Good - she does need help. You do know she killed a girl?"

Samuel Sullivan chuckled. "That wasn't the sort of help I meant. See, according to Rebecca, you stole her power, and she'd like to have it back."

I folded my arms over my chest and took a deep breath. "First off, I didn't _steal_ anything from her - I just made it inaccessible. Second, I only did it because she attacked me and people I care about, and if I let her turn invisible again, how do I know she won't keep doing it? So no, I won't undo the block I put on her ability." I tried to leave, but Sullivan blocked my way out.

"I think you will if you ever want to see your boyfriend and your sister again."

Before he said that, I was merely annoyed - I had been captured by much scarier bad guys than a bunch of socially-maladjusted carnies, and I was confident I could handle these two; I sensed that he was special like me and was fully prepared to block him if he tried using whatever talent he had against me - but when he had the nerve to threaten the most important people in my life, I got angry. "What have you done to Peter and Claire? If you've hurt them..."

"I haven't," he interrupted, saving me the trouble of thinking up an appropriately dire threat. "I just...sent them away. But don't worry, my teleporter will bring them back as soon as you've done what I want."

I did some fast thinking. If Claire and Peter were in any real danger, then obviously I would have to do whatever Sullivan asked of me. On the other hand, if all he'd done was have them sent somewhere else, Peter could just teleport back here. Whether or not Sullivan's 'leverage' was actually worth anything all hinged on one question: "Do you have anyone like me working for you?"

"No, he doesn't," Becky answered for him. "That's why he was interested in trying to recruit you." She rolled her eyes, clearly thinking he was wasting his time on me. In that single respect, I agreed with her completely.

"Oh, good. My boyfriend's an empath, and teleportation happens to be one of his abilities, so I'm sure he'll be back here and kicking your butts soon. So, now that we've established that you have no hold over me, I'll just be on my way."

I tried to slide between them, but Becky caught me by the hair. "You're not going anywhere until you give me my powers back, you bitch!" Using my long hair like a horse's reins to yank my head around, Becky spun me in a half-circle and shoved me against the wall.

"Now Rebecca, there's no need to be so rough with her," Sullivan admonished. He moved in to stop her. I seized the opportunity to pull my hair out of Becky's grasp, then carefully encased her and Sullivan in a physical shield, immobilizing them, and made a break for it.

Once outside the trailer, I tried to use my ability-detecting sixth sense to scan the area for Elle and got a shock - there were several dozen posthumans, maybe even hundreds, within a half-mile radius. Sensing one particular person in all this would be next to impossible, so I settled for putting distance between myself and Sullivan and hoping Elle's and my paths would cross.

No one tried to stop me - Samuel Sullivan evidently hadn't enlisted all of his cult members to capture me, which I counted as a massive stroke of good luck; I might have held my own against him and Becky, but my chances if all of them ganged up on me weren't good - at least not right away. I sensed him first; there was a powerful long-range telepath following me. Then I felt the prickling on the back of my neck that told me I was being watched. I put my head down, tugged my hair forward to obscure my face, and walked faster.

I never heard his footsteps drawing closer, but the telepath was suddenly right behind me. "Excuse me, miss?" The sound of his voice stopped me cold...because it was a voice I knew. This velvety voice used to be my favorite sound on earth, and apparently it was still engraved on my memory even now, more than a year since I'd last heard it. _This is impossible! It can't be _him_! This has to be a trick!_

Then an icy hand fell on my shoulder, and the voice in my head shut up. "Miss...will you turn around, please?"

I sucked in a shaky breath and slowly turned around, keeping my head lowered. If I didn't see his face, maybe I would be okay... Long white fingers gripped my chin, forcing me to look up. I had forgotten how beautiful he was - so perfect that it almost hurt to look at him.

"Um...hi, Edward." The words seemed woefully inadequate for the man who had once been the focus of my whole existence, then had nearly destroyed me, but what else was I supposed to say? He was only my ex-boyfriend after all, and exes ran across each other all the time. There was no reason to make a big deal out of it, especially when I was trying to go unnoticed.

Edward seemed to feel differently; he was staring at me like he thought he was seeing a ghost. Then his expression slowly changed from disbelief to wonder and pure happiness. "Bella..." And he pulled me into his arms.

**As promised, Edward's subplot has finally joined the main storyline! Rejoice! It's about time, right?**

**Next chapter: we find out where (and when) Samuel sent Peter and Claire, and Bella's feelings about the return of our favorite (or least favorite) vampire are discussed. **


	17. The Return

Chapter 17: The Return

_Edgar & Arnold - fifteen minutes earlier_

Edgar was getting antsy. With his enhanced speed, he didn't see why he couldn't just grab the girl, but Samuel had insisted that her companions were too dangerous - they had to be taken out of the picture before anyone could move on her, and she wasn't supposed to be frightened, harmed, or intimidated, so Edgar's role in tonight's mission was just to get Arnold close enough to teleport her friends away; the old man wasn't too quick on his feet anymore. The problem was that since the four had entered the carnival, they had stuck to crowded areas where someone would definitely notice if they vanished into thin air.

Finally, just as Edgar was ready to go tell Samuel that they needed a new plan, one of the blonde girls - not Samuel's main target - ran into the Hall of Mirrors, almost knocking Damien off his feet. The other three followed her. When they were all inside, Damien made eye contact with Edgar and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Come on, Arnold." Edgar took the elderly space-time manipulator by the arm and pulled him along after their quarries. Privately, he worried about the toll sending three people through time and space might take on Arnold, but apparently they were needed for 'leverage'. _We were never this forceful about recruiting when Joseph was in charge..._

Just then Damien cut the power, causing a blackout in the funhouse, which was Edgar's cue. He lifted frail old Arnold easily and brought him inside so he could do his thing. They bypassed the girl Samuel wanted, Arnold teleported two of her friends - the third girl having separated from them - and then Edgar got them out again without the girl even noticing they were there.

###

When the lights went out, Peter instinctively reached for Bella, to catch her before she hurt herself stumbling around in the dark, but he never touched her. Someone else grabbed his outstretched arm, and blindingly bright light burst into being around him, forcing his eyes closed. To compensate for the temporary blindness, he kicked his telepathy into overdrive, hoping to determine if he was being attacked - only to find that Claire's was the only human mind within range, her thoughts an incoherent mess of confusion and alarm. In a comic book it would be expressed as a series of exclamation marks.

When his vision cleared he saw that the blinding illumination was nothing more than sunlight, which contrasted so sharply with the pitch blackness of a second ago that it had hurt his eyes until they adjusted. But...sunlight? It had been late afternoon, getting on toward evening, when they went to the carnival; now it seemed that he had jumped through time and space to a forest similar yet somehow different from the woods of Forks, in an area totally unpopulated except for himself and Claire. He tracked her thoughts to their source, and soon he was able to hear her physically as well as psychically. First there the _thud_ of a falling body, then a shout of, "Hey! Get off me!" Peter sped up; it sounded like Claire was in trouble.

He found her sitting on the ground where she seemed to have fallen, covered in a swarm of small, moving..._things_...which she was trying and failing to beat off. They were so small that she could pick them up and toss them away but they outnumbered her one to at least two dozen; as soon as she got rid of one, two more took its place. Peter froze time, peeled the strange little creatures off his niece, and moved her away from them.

"Thanks," she said gratefully when he unfroze her. "I fell down when one of those little guys bit my ankle, and then they were _all over_ me..."

But Peter wasn't listening. "Shit, Claire - I think they were _eating_ you!"

Claire was covered in tiny bite marks, but that wasn't what bothered her most when she looked down at herself. "Damn...I liked this shirt!"

"I'll buy you a new one."

"So where are we? Did you teleport us?"

"No, I think somebody else sent us here; I felt someone grab me..."

One of the creatures that had attacked Claire hopped over to them, chirping inquisitively. Claire scowled, bent down and grabbed it...and her eyes widened. "Uh, Peter, I think _where_ we are might be the least of our problems." She held it out for his inspection. "Is it just me, or does this lizard look kind of...like a little dinosaur?"

"Could be," Peter agreed; it reminded him vaguely of something he'd seen in a _Jurassic Park_ movie. "Claire, I need you to tell me if Bella's anywhere nearby."

Claire shut her eyes and focused on the catalyst inside her, trying to feel that mysterious pull in her blood toward her 'other half'... There was nothing. "I can't feel her," she told Peter, opening her eyes. "It's like she doesn't exist."

Peter didn't know whether to be relieved or worried by this information - if Bella didn't exist in this time then she hadn't been teleported with them, but did that mean she was still in their own time, or had she been sent somewhere else? _Only one way to find out._ "Claire, time to go. We need to find Bella and Elle."

A distant roar gave them another reason to leave; neither was interested in becoming lunch for a T-rex. "Getting out of here's sounding better all the time." Claire slipped her hand into Peter's with a nervous laugh as she looked around for whatever animal had roared.

Peter concentrated hard on the time and place he and Claire came from and the prehistoric forest disappeared, replaced by the Sullivan Brothers' Carnival. He didn't allow himself to feel relieved, though; he was already thinking ahead to what he would do if Bella had been sent to another time. Then Claire said, "She's here," and the knot of tension twisting inside him loosened ever so slightly.

"Great. Now we just need to find Elle." He pulled her image to the forefront of his mind and focused on locating her, only to have his concentration broken by Claire tugging his sleeve.

"You don't need clairvoyance, Peter - she's right there."

Sure enough, Elle was leaning against a tent pole less than ten feet away, eating blue cotton candy and wearing her familiar not-a-care-in-the-world expression. "Oh, there you are. Did you get lost?" Then she noticed Claire's torn shirt and the dried blood on her skin. "What happened to you?"

"We were sent back in time and I got nibbled by some tiny dinosaur lizards."

Elle was surprised to hear that; she'd thought it was only Bella who had an inconvenient tendency to get into trouble when left unattended. _This wouldn't have happened if I'd been there, _she thought as she followed Peter and Claire, who was on Bella's trail. She would have to be more vigilant; letting things like this happen to the people she was supposed to be keeping safe was inexcusable - tonight's incident would earn her a black mark if she were still an agent.

Luckily they found Bella unharmed, but upset - she had also used the catalyst to trace Claire, and they literally ran into each other near a family of fire-eaters. _"Finally!"_ she exclaimed. "I've been looking all over for you! Guys, we've gotta get out of here. This whole carnival is a cult - a cult made up of people like us! Becky Taylor is part of it, and their leader, Samuel Sullivan, wanted me to remove my block on her power."

"Bella, tell me you didn't do it," Claire pleaded - she really didn't want to deal with Becky again.

"Of course I didn't. Sullivan tried to force me by saying he'd trapped you and Peter in another time, but I knew Peter could teleport back so I refused. I'm just glad he didn't get hold of Elle too."

"Like he _could_," Elle scoffed. "I'd turn him into a crispy carnie if he tried."

"Let's just go, okay?" Bella took Peter's hand and tried to pull him toward the carnival's exit.

"Okay, okay." Peter thought she was overreacting - so what if Sullivan was in cahoots with Becky? Most of his 'cult members' were showing zero interest in Bella, and Peter was confident that the four of them could handle Sullivan if he attacked them alone or with only one or two others - but he let Bella urge him forward. The carnival leader's threats seemed to have put her on edge, and Peter hated seeing her so anxious.

Or maybe, he mused as they made their way to the empty field abutting the fairgrounds that had become a temporary parking lot, Bella hadn't been freaked out by Sullivan. A closer look told him that her expression wasn't one of pure fear, it was one that said, _I'm hiding something and it makes me nervous._ And she had shut him out of her mind...

Then he noticed something that pushed his worries and half-formed suspicions right out of his head: Samuel Sullivan was leaning on Claire's car. His attitude appeared casual, but his thoughts revealed that he was there with a purpose. "Leaving so soon, are ya?" he drawled.

Peter's fists clenched. He didn't normally consider himself a violent person, but right then he felt that he could happily sock Samuel - there was a greed bordering on lust in his eyes as he looked them over, but it was his thoughts about Bella that really set Peter's teeth on edge. She had impressed him with her display of power in his trailer, and he was already imagining what he could do with her talents, as if she were just an object to be acquired and used. _He shouldn't be allowed to think of her like that!_ Peter thought furiously.

Before he could do anything about it, Bella moved in front of him. "It's not soon enough," she snarled.

"I'm sorry you feel that way. I don't think you realize what I can offer you-"

"Considering that I was almost _eaten_ because of you, I'm not interested!"

"I'm with the cheerleader on this one," Elle chimed in. "And that hardly ever happens."

"And how long do you think the four of you can make it out there, passing for 'normal'? Those people will never understand you. You'd be better off with your own kind."

"I don't need your cult for that," Bella told him. "I've already got people who understand me just fine." She squeezed Peter's hand.

"So I'd really love it if you could get off my car now," Claire added.

When Samuel didn't move right away, Peter pulled free of Bella, seized the other man by the front of his shirt, and forced him away from the girls. "Whatever you want with us, we're not interested in joining you, so you're going to take Becky and leave this town. And I strongly suggest you forget about my girlfriend, or I will make your life very unpleasant. Got it?" He released Samuel, causing him to stumble backward, and got into the Charger's backseat next to Bella, who unexpectedly leaned over and kissed him with more enthusiasm than she usually showed in front of others. "What was that for?"

"For handling Sullivan. You're hot when you threaten people," she admitted with a slight blush, "though I'm glad you don't do it often."

"I didn't like how he thought of you."

Bella shuddered. "I'd rather not know, if you don't mind." She snuggled close to Peter and spent the rest of the drive home in silence.

###

"Peter, we need to talk."

_About time,_ he thought. Bella had been strangely quiet and pensive since their return from the carnival over two hours ago, reinforcing Peter's suspicions that something more than Sullivan's attempt at coercing her had gone down while he and Claire were on their unexpected detour to the Mesozoic Era. He just hoped she would open up to him once they were alone together, and now it seemed she wanted to. "I'm listening."

She sat on the edge of their bed, still fully dressed except for her shoes, staring at her hands where she twisted them in her lap and looking almost like a child awaiting punishment. "I'm...worried...about how you're going to take this," she said softly.

"You know you can tell me anything."

Bella nodded, seemingly reassured. "After I got away from Sullivan, I ran into someone I used to know in Forks."

"Did they recognize you?"

"Yes, he did."

"Damn." Few things could blow apart a fake identity like an old acquaintance. "Do you think he'll tell anyone your real name?"

"I don't know. I don't _think_ so," she said hesitantly. "Does this mean we have to move?"

Peter gave it careful consideration before answering. Noah Bennet had said they would have to be ready to pack up and leave at a moment's notice if anything happened that might expose them or draw Arthur's attention, but did a chance meeting constitute a real threat? "We'll wait and see if your friend tells anyone about seeing you," he decided. "No reason to panic."

"Okay." Bella still looked troubled. "Peter, I have to tell you...this wasn't just any old friend I ran into. It was Edward Cullen." She cringed in anticipation of his reaction.

Peter cursed under his breath; hearing that name brought back memories of how heartbroken Bella had been over her vampire boyfriend deserting her that he didn't like to revisit, and judging by her confused, distraught demeanor it seemed that Edward was still able to shake her up now, after all this time. "What'd he want with you?"

"I couldn't tell; his behavior was very...strange. He stared at me like I was the ghost of Christmas past, and he kept babbling about how I should be dead. I think he was a little unhinged, to be honest."

"Is that even possible for a vampire?"

"I don't know, but if you'd seen him..." Clearly disturbed by the state of her former flame, Bella let her words trail off and shrugged helplessly.

"Why don't you let me see, then? Show me your memory." Peter had learned that, while it was Bella's nature to keep things to herself, it was better for her to get them off her chest, and opening her mind to him seemed to give her a sort of release she couldn't get any other way. He moved closer to her but she put a hand on his chest, holding him back.

"Wait - there's one more thing you need to know. Edward...he kissed me. I didn't mean to let it happen, I was just so shocked that it was like my brain shut down and I forgot all about using my shield to push him away. But please, you have to believe I didn't want it! Please." She was clutching at him now, afraid he would push her away.

Peter didn't understand how she could think he would be angry with her, but he hurried to assure her that that wasn't the case. "It's okay, Bella. I don't blame you."

She raised her head for a quick peek up at his face. "You don't?"

"Of course not - I'd be shocked too if my ex showed up and kissed me. You haven't done anything wrong."

Bella's relief was obvious. "Thanks. I'll show you that memory now, if you still wanna see it." She shifted onto her knees and straddled his lap, causing her short skirt to hike up.

"You know, I don't need you in my lap to read your mind."

Bella smirked. "But you like me here, don't you?"

"Tease." He gripped her narrow waist and pushed her back slightly. "You think I can't tell when you're trying to distract me?"

"All right, all right..." she sighed, and lowered her mental barriers.

_Flashback - BPOV_

"Bella..." And he pulled me into his arms.

I went rigid, inwardly screaming, _What the hell are you doing?_ although I knew he couldn't hear since I was shielding my mind for all I was worth. After a long moment he finally stopped hugging me, though he didn't let me go; instead he held me at arm's length, as if afraid I would disappear if he took his hands off me.

"This is unbelievable - a miracle. Seeing you here, alive... It almost makes me think Carlisle may be right after all. Heaven can't possibly be better than this. Or perhaps this _is_ heaven, though I can't imagine how..."

I was getting more uncomfortable by the minute, and not just because Edward's hands were chilling my bare arms. There was an odd, almost feverish gleam in his eyes as he looked me over that didn't appear particularly sane, not to mention the fact that he was talking nonsense. "Edward, uh, what the hell are you talking about?"

Edward frowned at me. "Well, you're supposed to be dead, love."

My jaw dropped. "_What?_ No, I'm very much alive."

"I can tell." He smiled. "You're too warm to be dead." His right hand came up to trace every line of my face; his fingertips brushed my lips, then trailed down the side of my neck, over my collarbone and shoulder, and combed through my hair.

Through it all, I stood stock-still, trying to make my brain function properly. His intimate touches baffled me; it was like something straight out of a memory from our time together, except different, because his cold caress failed to ignite the burning need I remembered. It just felt _wrong_. "Wh-what are you-? You shouldn't- I need to-"

"Shh, love." Edward pulled me close again and, before I could form another protest, silenced me by pressing his icy, perfect lips to mine.

There was an edge of desperation in his kiss, as if he were drowning and I was his last breath of oxygen, but he was still careful, still handling me as if I were made of porcelain. Funny, I used to think being kissed like this was the height of physical affection, until Peter taught me better. His warm skin and the way he never hesitated to match my passion with his own was worlds away from Edward's cautious, close-mouthed kisses. He only made me feel cold, inside and out.

I stood there like a statue, slowly processing what I was feeling and wondering if Edward had completely lost his mind, until he finally pulled back. Then I shuddered, the way people did when they'd touched something slimy and repulsive. "What the _hell_ was that?" I screamed, forgetting about not drawing the carnies' attention. "Are you _crazy_?"

Edward surprised (and unnerved) me by laughing. "I'm talking to a dead girl, so I'd say it's a strong possibility. But I don't care. If this is insanity, I'll take it."

I backed away. "I don't know what kind of sick game you're playing, but I don't have time for it. Stay away from me." I dove into the nearest tent and threaded my way through the mass of people, hoping they would cover up my scent, or at least that Edward wouldn't pursue me in full view of them.

_End flashback - BPOV continues_

By the time I finished reliving my awkward reunion with Edward I felt so pathetically stupid for just standing there and letting him touch me in ways I didn't want that I could barely look Peter in the eye. No matter what he'd said earlier, he _had_ to be disgusted with my weakness.

"You are not weak," he said sternly. "It's okay for you to be confused about seeing Edward again."

I kissed him hard, grateful for his understanding. "Touch me," I breathlessly demanded, and shivered with delight when he pulled my top up and caressed my skin. Edward had left me feeling cold and empty, but I knew I could always count on Peter to warm me again.

**Well I hope that was satisfying for all the people who worried that Bella might go back to Edward - I think now we see that ain't gonna happen. If you were hoping for more drama don't despair; we haven't seen the last of Edward yet. Next chapter will be his POV on seeing Bella again, and something I've been looking forward to writing for a LONG time: Peter and Edward finally meet!**


	18. Battle of the Exes

**Yes, the chapter title is a total cliché. *Shame* Sadly it was the only thing that fit, and hopefully the Bella/Edward face-off and the length will make up for my lack of originality. **

Chapter 18: Battle of the Exes

After leaving the carnival, Edward hunted and replayed his encounter with Bella in his head. Three hours later he was almost convinced it hadn't been a hallucination; if all he had seen was a subconscious representation of his lost love, then she should have appeared exactly as he remembered her, but there had been appreciable differences. Her scent, for one - the familiar aroma of strawberries and freesia and her addictively sweet blood was much the same, except now a new smell had been added to the mix, a strange chemical odor unlike anything Edward had ever smelled before. Then there were her clothes - the Bella he'd known favored jeans, would never have worn such a short skirt. _Not that it didn't look good on her..._

There was still no explanation for how she was alive after he had heard not one but _two_ accounts of her death, but he found that he really didn't care. Bella was alive; nothing else mattered except that he had to tell Alice - she would be thrilled to have her best friend back. He ran to the hotel where he'd left her and Gabriel.

"Where have you been?" she hissed when he arrived. "We waited on you for _hours_, until Gabriel gave up about forty-five minutes ago." She gestured to where the watchmaker had fallen asleep in front of the TV. "At least tell me you found her...though I'm guessing not, since you haven't brought her back with you."

"No - listen, forget Elle Bishop-"

_"Forget her?"_ Alice shrieked. Gabriel jerked awake and fell out of his chair, but the two vampire siblings ignored him. "I've been trying to get a vision of this girl ever since I caught up with you in Forks because _you_ thought she was responsible for burning down Charlie's house, even though she has to be one of the hardest people in the world to pin down, and now that we finally figured out where she is you're saying we should just _forget about her_!"

"Calm down, Alice. Hunting down killers doesn't matter anymore because Bella isn't dead." This revelation rendered Alice speechless, giving Edward time to explain.

"Great," Gabriel said when he finished. "Does this mean we can go back to New York now?"

"Don't be silly," Alice said brusquely. "Edward's just found out that the love of his life is still alive - you wouldn't just walk away if you were in his place, would you? You'd try to win her back."

"Yeah, I guess that's what I'd do."

Alice smiled at him, then turned an expectant look on her brother. "So what's your plan?"

"I don't know... Maybe I'll just talk to her."

"That's a start. Of course you'll have to explain that you lied that day you left her in the woods when you said you didn't want her anymore, tell her you never stopped loving her, and probably do some groveling. Oh, and do try to find out why she isn't dead, will you?"

Edward agreed with everything Alice said, but there was a bigger issue on his mind. "Even if I tell her everything, do you think she'll take me back after so much time has passed, after all I've done to her?"

"I really can't say. I can't see what she'll decide until you talk to her, and even then...I'm not sure she'll ever show up in my visions again, Edward. She seems to have dropped off my radar, otherwise I would have known she was alive a long time ago."

"Maybe she's like me," Gabriel suggested, "and her ability hides her somehow."

Neither Edward nor Alice was inclined to believe that; after all, they had known Bella for several months, during which she had never displayed the slightest hint of any extraordinary abilities, unless one counted the quirk in her mind that kept Edward from hearing her thoughts. After half an hour of debate - which was carried out between just the two of them, since Gabriel had gone back to sleep - however, they decided that Bella being an evolved human might be possible. Not probable, but possible.

"We may as well drop it for now," Edward eventually concluded. "At the moment I'm more interested in finding out where she's living. Would you agree that her home is most likely somewhere in town?"

"Yes, I can't see her making too long a trip just to go to a carnival. And Dartmouth is nearby, so she probably goes to school here, though I can't imagine where she got the money."

Edward smiled, though the expression was touched with sadness; he was glad Bella was pursuing higher education, like he'd always wanted her to, but he wished he was the one paying her tuition, wished he was taking classes with her...he wished he was still a part of her life, but he intended to work on that. Edward Cullen had once _been_ Bella Swan's life, and if he had anything to say about it he would be again.

###

It was four-thirty the next afternoon when he finally went to Bella's house, having tracked down her address by breaking into the Dartmouth dean of admissions' office and hacking the student database. She was enrolled under the alias Isabella Morgan, but Edward easily recognized her from her photo. After that everything fell into place so neatly that getting to her was almost too easy; she was home alone, and none of her neighbors were around to see him breaking in.

She was on the computer - a newer and better one than the outdated model she'd had in her room when she lived with Charlie, he noticed - so absorbed in the literary analysis she was writing that she completely failed to realize Edward was there until he said, "Hello, Bella."

Bella yelped and spun around so fast that she nearly tipped her swivel chair over. "Edward." Her heart was pounding wildly and her pupils were dilated, clearly showing fear or at least extreme stress, but she kept her voice admirably even and inflection-free. "I didn't think I'd see you again."

"I couldn't leave things as they were last night...after you ran away from me." He sounded hurt, but instead of softening Bella, it only served to exasperate her.

"You can't blame me! You show up after almost a _year_ when I was already having a really bad night and tell me I'm supposed to be _dead_ - what'd you expect?"

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want an apology; I want you out of my house."

The words stung enough that for a split second he considered doing as she asked and simply leaving, only to decide against it. There was too much he had to say to her, too many questions he needed answered - then there was the simple fact that, after going so long without her, he couldn't bring himself to walk away now that they were finally together again. "My behavior last night isn't the only thing I need to apologize for. Please, just give me an hour, and then I'll go. I'll leave the state if you want."

Bella checked the time in the lower right-hand corner of her computer screen; roughly forty-five minutes till Peter's shift at the hospital ended. Surely she could get Edward out before he came in. Then she mentally slapped herself. _Edward invited himself in, and anyway there's no rule that says I can't _talk_ to him. I don't need him to be gone before Peter comes home...but if he tries to kiss me again he's in for it!_ "All right," she said, sighing to give the impression that she preferred him to leave _now_. "One hour. I was gonna take a break from homework anyway." She stood up to decrease his height advantage over her and folded her arms across her chest in a classic stern posture. "Talk."

"Very well; I'll start at the beginning. After I...left Forks-" He paused, recalling the event in painful clarity: her desperation as she tried to convince him to stay (_"This is about my soul, isn't it? Take it - I don't want it without you!"_), the unforgivable lie he had told, the look in her eyes that said she truly believed he didn't want her anymore...

Bella showed no signs of being similarly affected - her stony expression and rigid stance never wavered. "After you left Forks you distracted yourself, right?"

"I hunted Victoria, but it was a necessity, not a distraction."

"Why? She didn't come after you, did she? Try to hurt your family?" Bella's eyes widened in alarm and for a moment she forgot about giving Edward the cold shoulder. She still had a soft spot for the Cullens, and would feel terrible if Victoria had hurt them while she had been protected by Peter. _Damn it, he wanted to hunt her down after she killed me, and I wouldn't let him even though he probably could've killed her easily - whatever she's done since then is my fault, just like Charlie..._

"No, she hasn't harmed anyone, apart from her prey of course."

The casual reference to Victoria's feeding habits turned Bella's stomach - her 'prey' were _people_ after all - but it was a minor relief to know she wasn't responsible for the deaths of the family she had once hoped to join.

"I eventually caught up with her in Africa, and she told me that she had returned to Washington...and that she had killed you."

"Well, she was clearly wrong about that."

"I can't see how," Edward said slowly. "The mental picture was too vivid, too detailed - I could have sworn it was a memory of an actual event rather than a daydream-"

"You obviously make mistakes, though," Bella cut in, "since you didn't know she wanted me dead to avenge James. Unless you knew and just didn't care?"

Edward flinched. "Of course I cared! How can you even suggest that I knowingly left you in danger? I would never have done that! Your safety has been the primary motivation for everything that I've done!"

"Oh, right. I felt very safe when Victoria was tearing my heart out!" Bella knew instantly that she'd gone too far. She had never wanted to fight with or hurt Edward; all she wanted was for him to leave and take the reminders of her past life with him, or, failing that, to make sure he wasn't planning on exposing her true identity. Making him angry was not conducive to that goal. A closer look, however, showed that he didn't seem mad, just pained. It irked her - as far as she was concerned he'd given up the right to be concerned about what happened to her a long time ago - but she would use it if she could.

She forced herself to calm down, wiped the angry tears from her eyes, and tried to will the blood currently turning her face tomato-red to flow somewhere else. "Edward, I'm sorry. I don't blame you for anything, I never did-"

"Stop, Bella. You are well within your rights to blame me for everything I failed to protect you from. I am grateful for your forgiveness, though." He had placed his fingertips over her mouth to shush her; now he traced her lips, stroking her skin, reacquainting himself with how it felt to touch her-

-Until she stepped backwards, slipping out of his reach. "Okay, you need to stop that. I was gonna let kissing me at the carnival slide because you were obviously-" she flapped a hand as if trying to grab the word she needed out of thin air "-well...not yourself...but you seem perfectly reasonable now, so you can't keep _touching_ me. It's not appropriate now that we aren't together anymore, and I don't understand why you want to anyway."

"Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"Figured _what_ out?"

"I lied to you, Bella. You had been attacked by my own brother - you could have died so easily - I was terrified of what might happen if you continued to live in such dangerous proximity to my world and, selfish as I am, I knew it was time I put you ahead of what I wanted - what I needed. I only wanted to protect you, but that day in the forest, I could tell you weren't going to let go. And I thought I could force you to if I...if I convinced you that I didn't want you anymore. So I lied."

The ground seemed to tilt under Bella's feet. It was a sensation she had experienced a few times before: first when Edward seemingly fell out of love with her, again when Claire Bennet told her that she wasn't the average, ordinary human she had always seen herself as, and most recently when she had witnessed the brutal murder of her father and learned that she was being hunted. It was the feeling of everything she thought she knew being called into question, of her world spinning off its axis and rearranging itself around her, and every time it happened she emerged from the experience irreversibly altered in some way - sometimes a small way, sometimes not.

This time she resisted the change; she had been through too many of those already. "You...still love me?" Edward nodded. She took a deep breath. "Okay. The thing is, there was a time - _months_, actually - where if you'd come back and told me this I would've taken you back in a heartbeat. You were all I ever wanted - you were _more_ than I ever wanted, and when you left it felt like this giant hole had been punched through my chest. I wasn't myself anymore; I was a shell." She paused for another deep breath before saying the words he really wasn't going to like hearing. "But then I met someone else and-"

"You moved on. Just like I intended."

"Not right away. I never _meant_ to move on; I didn't think I was even capable of wanting anyone after you...but it happened."

"And this new guy in your life - are your feelings for him anything like what we had?" He had to check; if there was even the slimmest of slim chances that Bella wasn't really in love with her new boyfriend, then he wouldn't hesitate to do everything in his power to get her back, but first he had to know whether she was at all likely to be receptive or if he would just be messing up her life again for no good reason.

"In some ways yes, in others they're completely different. He doesn't have much in common with you."

"Of course not - he's human."

"No!" It was very important that Edward not think she was choosing Peter over him because of something so trivial. "I mean, yes, he is human, but that isn't what makes him different. It's _him_, and I-"

"You love him."

"I love him as much as I ever loved you; I'm sorry if that isn't what you want to hear but it's the truth. We don't have to talk about it if it hurts you." Bella knew if their positions were reversed she wouldn't want to hear all about Edward's new girlfriend.

"All right. Why don't we talk about your miraculous recovery from Victoria's attack?"

_Oh shit!_ "I'm sorry, what?" she asked, trying her best to look innocently clueless.

Edward wasn't buying it. "I never told you the details of the memory Victoria showed me, yet you knew - because it happened to you. And you're still a terrible actress."

"Hey, I never denied the attack happened," Bella said defensively. "I just said she was wrong about having killed me."

"So how did you survive? Even vampire venom couldn't have healed the wounds she inflicted on you, and anyway you're still human."

"Why should I tell you? Nothing in my life is your business anymore." She was being mean but didn't care; she wasn't about to give away any information on Peter and Claire.

"I'm not only asking for myself - Alice would like to know too."

"Alice is here? And when were you going to tell me? She was my friend! Do you know how much it hurt me when you made her leave without saying goodbye?"

Edward sighed. "As I explained to you, I thought a clean break would be best-"

"_You_ thought," Bella interrupted bitterly. "You know, this is why I'm not leaving Peter for you - he doesn't try to run my life!" She glared at him, and was just about to say she wanted him to leave - their discussion was on the verge of degenerating into a pointless shouting match which wouldn't be helpful for either of them - when Peter teleported into the room.

"Hey Bella, how's it-?" He broke off when he noticed Edward. "Sorry, I didn't realize you had company." He was careful to keep his tone neutral; he wasn't exactly thrilled to find a vampire in the house, much less one who had caused the girl he loved so much pain, but he knew it wasn't his place to throw Edward out. He was _her_ ex, so whether he was welcome in her house was entirely up to her.

Sensing that Peter wasn't going to take control of the situation, Bella massaged her temples to ward off an oncoming headache and attempted to explain what was going on in a way that wouldn't cause problems between them. "He dropped in uninvited, said he wanted to talk. I didn't see any harm in hearing him out, so..." She shrugged and added by way of private mental communication, _I'm sorry, I didn't find out why he's in town or tell him not to mention my real name to anyone. I know I should have...but we just ended up arguing._ She sheepishly lowered her gaze. _Maybe now that you're here, you can...?_

_ Sure. _

Watching Bella with her new man - this had to be him; her body language indicated that he was very important to her - Edward was surprised by his own reaction. Instead of the jealousy he'd expected, his dominant feeling was a sense of...amusement, almost. He'd left Bella in the hope that she could have a normal life with some_one_ normal, and instead she had found another weird one. _I should have known - 'normal' has never held much attraction for Bella. She probably wouldn't have looked twice at this man if he were just another ordinary human. _

Amusement turned to frustration when he tried to read Peter's thoughts, only to find that Bella was no longer the only person whose mind was closed to him. He pushed harder, testing the human's resistance...

...And Peter pushed back. _Tell me why you're here. What do you want with Bella? How'd you find her? _

"I wasn't looking for her; I thought she was dead. I've been trying to piece together what happened to her, and an old classmate from Forks told me that your cousin had burned down the Swans' house. She's the one I was after. My sister Alice has been helping me, but your cousin never showed up in any of her visions until recently, when Alice saw her at the carnival last night. I went there for her but found Bella instead."

"Peter doesn't have a cousin," Bella objected, confused.

"He means Elle."

"Oh, that's right. We did tell everyone she was your cousin. And they're blaming the fire on _her_?"

Edward didn't answer; he was too appalled at how much he had just told Peter without meaning to. He hadn't particularly wanted to tell the man anything, but hadn't been able to stop the words coming out. "What did you do to me?" he demanded, glaring at Peter.

"Telepathic compulsion," Bella answered for him, moving between the two men and preparing to shield Peter if necessary. "He doesn't just read minds, he can control them too."

"Is that so?" Edward was clearly less than impressed. "And I assume there's a good reason why he felt the need to lie about his relation to Elle Bishop?"

"_He_ is standing right here," Peter interjected sharply. "And Elle..." He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The important thing is that she's our friend, and not an arsonist, so you can stop hunting her. Okay?"

"Fair enough. I don't suppose I'm going to get an explanation for Bella's new pseudonym either, am I?"

"How do you know about that?"

Peter pulled the answer out of Edward's head. "He hacked into Dartmouth's records to find your address."

Bella's face went red with anger. "He did _what_!" Then, to Edward: "No, I am definitely _not_ explaining why I changed my name to _you_! Did you miss what I said earlier about my life not being your business anymore?"

"I heard, but I can't just stop caring what happens to you. I just want to be sure you aren't mixed up with anyone you shouldn't be." His sideways glance at Peter left no doubt as to who he thought the questionable character in her life was.

Predictably, Bella snapped, "I'm not. I'm fine. I think it's time for you to go."

"Bella-"

Peter cut him off. "She said she wants you to go. Now, you can leave on your own, or I can kick your ass out, teleport you to the middle of nowhere and make you forget you ever met Bella. Your choice."

Edward instinctively wanted to argue - being challenged, _dismissed_ by a mere human was nearly intolerable - but thought it might be wise to ignore the urge. Although he couldn't read Peter's mind, his actions and demeanor were coming through loud and clear; when he threatened to erase Edward's memory and send him who-knew-where, he wasn't bluffing. "All right. If that's what Bella wants."

He left, but he didn't go far. Even if he was too late to repair his relationship with Bella, he couldn't walk away without knowing she would be okay. And after learning that she was involved with a man who lied about his associates, used his powers to control others' minds, and had possibly forced her to assume a new identity for some unknown reason, he wasn't at all convinced that she would be okay with Peter Petrelli.

**So...apologies to anyone who wishes Peter had 'kicked Edward's ass out' - I know some of you wanted to see a fight, but I felt it wasn't quite realistic to have two non-five-year-old guys get into a knock-down drag-out just because they've both dated/are dating the same girl. At least Bella put Edward in his place and let him know he can't just waltz back into her life like nothing happened, and I hope I adequately communicated the tension between them and made it believable.**

**In the next chapter I'm going to begin wrapping up some of the loose ends, so I'm thinking there'll be about six more chaps before the grand finale. The end is in sight! **


	19. Sylar's Resurgence

**Warning: some violence and bloodshed at the end of this chapter, and a major, MAJOR cliffhanger. **

Chapter 19: Sylar's Resurgence

_BPOV_

"He did _what_?" Claire slammed her chocolate milk down so hard it splashed out of the carton but, with her eyes glued on me, she didn't notice.

I hunched down in my chair in a futile attempt to shrink away from the curious looks drawn by Claire's raised voice. Maybe telling her and Elle about Edward's visit while we were out to lunch in a public café hadn't been the best idea; I should have realized they would be angry on my behalf. Although Elle hadn't said anything yet, I could practically hear the wheels turning in her head. "He said he still loves me," I wearily repeated. "He didn't come right out and ask me to take him back, but it was definitely implied. I told him it's too late for do-overs; I'm not available anymore."

"Good," Elle said suddenly, fiercely. "This guy doesn't sound like he's any good for you."

Claire rolled her eyes and muttered, "Overprotective much?"

Elle glared at her. "Bella's the first real friend I've ever had - I'm allowed to be protective." She turned back to me and asked, "Vampires are flammable, right? I can take care of him for you."

"That won't be necessary," I said quickly. "I want Edward out of my life, not dead." Elle pouted. I couldn't help smiling at her expression, like a child who had been denied their favorite candy. "Look, if he causes any trouble I promise you can have first crack at him." She cheered up instantly.

We finished our meal and were leaving the restaurant when a garishly yellow Porsche pulled in front of us, blocking our way to Claire's car. "Hey!" she exclaimed, gesturing angrily for the driver to move. "Do you mind?"

I was annoyed too, but for a different reason. The car was expensive, flashy, and had darkly tinted windows - exactly the sort of thing a Cullen would drive. "You might get to take care of Edward after all, Elle. I _told_ him I want to be left alone!" I marched up to the driver's side and rapped sharply on the window. "Edward, what part of-"

I broke off midsentence as the window rolled down, because the pale, beautiful face I found myself glaring into wasn't his. "Alice?"

"Hi, Bella."

"What are you doing here?" I frowned as a possible explanation occurred to me. "Edward didn't send you to plead his case, did he? Because my answer is still no."

"No, that isn't why I'm here. To be honest I'm not sure I would help him that way, even if he asked. I told him there would be consequences for leaving you, but you know how stubborn he can be. No, I'm here because I've missed you, Bella."

A lump rose in my throat. "I…I've missed you a lot too."

Alice smiled. "In that case, do you have a little time to catch up with an old friend?"

"I guess so. Sure."

"So get in here; this parking lot isn't a great place to talk." It _was_ inconveniently sunny; Alice was leaning away from the open window to prevent the light from hitting her directly, but her skin still glowed subtly.

Elle grabbed my arm as I headed for the Porsche's passenger side. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, she is the sister of the guy who brutally dumped you and left you a brokenhearted, pathetic subhuman wreck for months."

"Elle!"

"Claire, it's okay, it's just her way of showing she cares. Elle, I appreciate it but I can take care of myself. I'll see you both later."

As soon as I got in the Porsche Alice asked, "Is it true what she said?"

"Is what true that who said?"

"Don't play coy, Bella. Your friend said you were a…'brokenhearted wreck' after we left you behind in Forks. Is that an accurate description?"

"Elle tends to be overdramatic sometimes…but yes, Edward broke my heart. What did you expect? You knew how I felt about him."

"Oh Bella, I'm so sorry. Yes, I knew, and I tried to tell him what he was doing would only hurt you both, but he wouldn't listen, he can be so-"

"It's all right, Alice, I don't blame you. I'm not even that mad at Edward - or I wasn't until he showed up here." I stopped myself there; I was happy to see Alice again and didn't want to let anything ruin that. "Is it okay if we don't talk about him anymore? Just tell me…tell me what you've done since you left Forks. How's Emmett?"

###

After more than an hour of aimless driving and chatting, Alice offered to show me pictures from the Cullens' most recent family vacation on the private island Carlisle had bought for Esme as a wedding present.

"Sure, I'd love to see them."

"Okay - all my photos are on my iPod…which I left in my hotel room. I should have brought it, but I couldn't see if you would talk to me until I asked you."

"So we'll go to your hotel." Alice grimaced. "Is that a problem?"

"Edward will be there," she said apologetically. "I swear I didn't set this up to try to get you to talk to him; actually, this was a really bad idea. Forget I said anything."

"No. We're friends, Alice, and it shouldn't be a big deal just to show a friend a few lousy pictures. I'm not hiding from him."

She gave me a long, appraising look, then executed a sharp turn and drove to the hotel where she and Edward were staying - the nicest and most expensive one in town, naturally. They also had what I suspected must be the largest suite in the place. "Edward, Bella's here," she announced unnecessarily.

To my relief, he only acknowledged me with a nod and a polite smile, which I returned. There was no reason we couldn't be civil to each other. "I won't be here long - Alice is just going to show me her vacation pictures and then I'll go."

"Don't hurry out on my account." He smiled at me again, but it seemed forced. I scuttled into the adjoining bedroom after Alice, making a point to shut the door behind me.

She obviously knew that I wasn't as comfortable with Edward's proximity as I'd like to be but refrained from commenting; instead she just held out her iPod and said, "Can you believe Emmett actually talked Rosalie into helping him build a sand castle?"

###

I was admiring a shot of a truly breathtaking coral reef taken on an underwater camera when it happened: the suite's main door was opened and I heard words I couldn't quite make out uttered in Edward's velvet tones. The voice that answered him was unfamiliar and, unless I was very much mistaken, belonged to a human. "Edward's friend is back," Alice remarked.

My eyebrows shot upward. "Edward has a friend? Since when?"

"They met in therapy-"

_"Therapy?" _

"Yes, he didn't cope well with thinking you were dead - or I should say he didn't cope at all. We had to do something."

I nodded, feeling stupid; most people _would_ see a shrink after suffering a particularly painful loss. It was just odd to think of a Cullen doing something so…_normal_.

"I can't say that Dr. Burke herself ever did him much good, but meeting Gabriel led to him finding out about evolved humans - like your boyfriend, apparently-" Alice shot me a mildly reproachful look, obviously disappointed by the lack of boy talk in our catch-up session "-and that gave him something new to think about. Not that it really took his mind off you, you understand - nothing could do _that_-"

"Alice," I said warningly. "I don't wanna hear about how Edward still isn't over me. He made his choice, and now he has to live with it. I'm sorry, but…"

"Don't be sorry for that, Bella. This Peter guy, on the other hand - _when _were you going to tell me about him?"

"Maybe when I figured out what to say?" When it came to describing the most important person in my life, words felt totally inadequate. "Peter's the most amazing person I've ever met, and he's done a lot for me: saved my life…and probably my sanity, too. I don't think I could've handled losing Charlie without him."

Alice smiled. "I'm happy for you, Bella. You deserve someone amazing."

A misplaced feeling of relief washed over me - while I knew moving on was perfectly within my rights, knowing that Alice had no expectations of me getting back together with Edward and didn't mind me being with someone else was still a weight off my chest. Now that I knew she wouldn't eventually try to push me back toward Edward, maybe we could even be friends again - not like we used to be, since Claire was my best friend now, but we could still hang out occasionally. "Thanks, Alice. Can I have your new cell number before I go? I'll keep in touch."

"You have to leave? Now?"

"Well, it has been almost three hours - my friends are probably wondering if you've eaten me for an afternoon snack."

"Why would they think that?"

"Figure of speech."

I left Alice in her room and made my way back through the Cullens' suite, bumping into Edward's mysterious friend - literally - in the main room. "Oh, I'm sorry-" I stopped midsentence as my gaze travelled up from the man's plaid shirt-clad torso to his face, because I was standing almost nose-to-chest with _Sylar_. I backed away quickly, gaping at him in horror. "You!"

Sylar cocked his head, studying me with apparent confusion. "Have we met?"

"I doubt that," Edward (incorrectly) answered for me. "Gabriel, this is Bella Swan. Bella, my friend Gabriel Gray."

"Friend? You and…and him… No…"

Sylar took a step closer, eyes still locked on my face, and I panicked. My shield burst outward, sending both him and Edward - as well as anything that happened to be between me and the door - flying. I took advantage of having a clear path to the exit and bolted.

The elevator failed to come when I slammed my hand on the call button, so I pelted down the stairs - all three flights - all the while expecting to hear Sylar chasing after me. People stared as I hurtled through the lobby, but I didn't slow down; if Sylar decided to take another crack at stealing my brain, he probably wouldn't hesitate to kill them all if they got in his way. Once I got out onto the street I kept running, fell down a lot, collided with the concrete pole of a streetlight, and narrowly avoided getting run over by a bus, but I finally made it home more or less in one piece. "Peter! Claire! Elle!" Luckily they were all home and came running when I called them.

"What happened to you?"

"You're bleeding!"

"I _knew_ going off with that vampire was a mistake!"

"Who hurt you?"

"Guys, stop!" I shouted. "He's back."

"Who is 'he'? Edward? We already know about him," Elle reminded me.

"No, not Edward. Sylar. Sylar's in town. I think…Edward and Alice brought him here."

Peter pushed me gently into a kitchen chair. "Okay, take a deep breath, calm down, then tell us everything."

I did as he said, recounting exactly what had gone down after I got into Alice's car. At some point during my narrative Claire's hand slipped into mine; I felt her ability being channeled between us, repairing the minor cuts and scrapes I'd acquired while moving at what was, for me, an unsafe speed.

When I finished Claire asked, "So what do we do now?" She was still holding my hand although I didn't need to borrow her power anymore, and her grip slowly tightened until I felt it down to my bones. It seemed she still had issues with Sylar. "If he's back we have to get rid of him again, don't we?"

"Yes we do," Elle agreed. "I have some unfinished business with him anyway. Bella, you need to take us to where you saw him."

"Is that what you want me to do?" I asked Peter.

He nodded affirmatively. "The last thing we need is him mucking around here - he tends to cause trouble. Tell me where to go and I'll teleport us there right now."

###

We found Edward and Alice in the middle of what looked like a heated discussion, and Elle jumped straight into interrogation mode, zapping them both hard enough to send them to their knees. "Where is he?"

"Gabriel?" Edward asked. "What do you want with-?"

"Shut up!" Elle hit him again. "Just tell us where he is!"

Alice sprang at her in an attempt to defend her brother, but Peter caught her before she could pounce on Elle, threw her to the floor and pinned her by the wrists. Seeing that his sister was in trouble, Edward swiped at Elle's ankles, causing her to stumble backward and distracting her enough that she stopped electrocuting him; then he aimed a blow at Peter.

That was my signal to intervene. I projected a shield between them, Edward slammed into it, and then I turned it sideways, smacking him down as if I were swatting a fly. "Leave him alone! Let's all just calm down and discuss this rationally, okay?"

"Tell your boyfriend to let Alice go!" Edward snarled.

"I'll let her go as long as she doesn't try anything," Peter retorted.

"Why would I? _You_ attacked _us_!"

"Well, you did bring a serial killer to our doorstep," Claire said coldly. "That kind of pisses us off."

Alice raised a perfectly plucked and arched eyebrow. "Are Edward and I supposed to know what you're talking about?"

"Gabriel," Edward supplied, pulling the information from Claire's mind. "They're under the impression that he's a killer."

"It isn't an _impression_," I said angrily. "I _know_ he kills people!"

"How?"

"Because he tried to do it to me!" I pushed my mental shield aside and brought up the memory of how Sylar had waited for me outside Newton's one night last winter and attacked me, the pain and fear I'd felt as he cut me and the certainty that I was going to die…

Edward jerked away, staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. "Stop it, please. I believe you. But in all the time I've known him I never saw any hint that he was capable of such violence - I knew about his abilities but never dreamed he would use them that way… How could I have read him so wrongly?"

"Maybe your telepathy isn't what it used to be," Elle snidely suggested. "I mean, you're what, a hundred years old? Two hundred? Maybe you're getting rusty in your old age."

"I don't think that's his problem, Elle. I think…this is my fault."

"Your fault, Peter? How can it be your fault?" I protested.

He ignored me, speaking instead to Edward. "After Sylar attacked Bella I erased the memories of everything he'd done since he started killing and sent him-"

"To the Amazon?"

"How'd you know?"

"He told me that some months ago he found himself in the Amazon rainforest with no memory of how he came to be there." Edward paused briefly. "What you did wasn't kind, but you did leave him alive, which is more than I would have done if I'd been in your place that night."

"I'm glad you approve."

"Since you saved Bella's life, how can I not?"

"Well, now I'm thinking maybe I should've just killed him."

"What makes you say that?" Alice asked.

"Because letting the psycho go was a mistake?" Claire suggested.

Peter sighed. "He has your ability, Claire-"

"Yeah, I vividly remember him taking it."

"-And seeing Bella again may have given him the push he needs to repair whatever connections I broke in his brain."

My heart began beating very fast; I had a good idea what that would mean, but I had to ask anyway just in case I was wrong - and I really, _really_ wanted to be wrong. "And…if the damage caused by you erasing his memories is fixed, would he…?"

"He'd remember everything, yes."

"And be up to his old tricks in no time, I bet," Claire said darkly.

"That's not a given, though, is it?" Alice asked. "Just because he gets his memories back, that's no guarantee that he'll start killing again, right?"

"Alice," I said gently, "I'm pretty sure he'll do exactly that. He has this…hunger to absorb more and more power, and he does that by murdering people with abilities and examining their brains to find the part that controls their power. Maybe he doesn't _want_ to kill, but I don't think he can stop himself."

Alice's face crumpled with distress. "And if seeing you brings back that part of him, and I was the one that brought you right to him… Oh God."

"You can't blame yourself-"

Edward cut short my attempt at comforting her. "If Gabriel - or Sylar, or whatever he calls himself - targets other evolved humans to steal their powers, what on earth did he want with you, Bella?"

"You mean you haven't figured it out yet?" The look Claire gave him could have been one of incredulity or mild disgust, it was hard to tell. "Bella told me you were smart." Probably disgust, then. "She's like us - she has an unreadable mind and can do a couple more cool things, and I heal really fast. I'd offer to demonstrate, but cutting myself in front of vampires would be a really bad idea."

Both Cullen siblings turned to glare at me. "You told them?" Alice demanded, betrayal evident in her voice and wide, wounded eyes.

I shrugged helplessly. "Laurent came to Forks to scope things out for Victoria, see if your family was still protecting me; when he found me alone he tried to have me for a snack. Peter stopped him, but he couldn't help noticing Laurent wasn't human, so I had to explain - he _had_ just saved my life, after all! An explanation was the least I owed him. I protected your secret as long as I could even though waiting so long to come clean made Peter angry with me for a while, so don't lecture me, okay?"

Taken aback by my short tirade, Alice gave a quick nod. "All right, all right. I understand."

Edward was still staring at me like he'd never seen me before, but for a different reason. "All that time I wondered why I couldn't hear your thoughts…the obvious explanation should have come to me after I read Dr. Suresh's book, but I thought that if you had any extraordinary talents you would have used them to defend yourself when you were in danger."

"Well, at first all I had was the mental shield that kept you out of my head; I didn't develop anything I could really use until Peter taught me-"

"Hey," Claire interrupted, "it's great that you two are talking, but Sylar's still out there. What are we gonna do about him?"

"First we need to find him, obviously. Peter can do that, and if he's back to being homicidal then the three of us and Elle can…handle him…" Suddenly realizing that I hadn't heard anything from Elle in a while, I allowed my words to trail off as I scanned the room for her. She was gone. "Hey, where is Elle?"

"Bathroom, maybe?" Peter suggested.

"No," Alice said, "she sneaked out while you were explaining how you erased Gabriel's memory-"

"-To find him," Edward finished. "They have some sort of prior acquaintance, so she wanted to meet with him alone before he saw the rest of you. Her thoughts weren't very clear on why."

Peter said almost exactly the same thing I was thinking before I could: "It doesn't matter why. What does matter is that she may be headed into danger."

I muttered, "Damn it, Elle," quietly so as not to break Peter's concentration as he tried to locate her, and hoped it wasn't already too late.

_End BPOV_

Gabriel Gray had left the hotel immediately after his encounter with Bella Swan and was now taking a walk with no real destination in mind as he tried to figure out where he had seen her before. Her face, the blood draining from it as she stared up at him with wide, terrified brown eyes…it gave him an odd sense of déjà-vu, as if he'd seen the exact same image…somewhere. Slowly, the details of the old memory began to superimpose themselves over the new one - the setting was a parking lot, not a hotel room, it was night, not afternoon, and her face wasn't bloodless after all; her skin had been stained red by blood flowing freely from a long cut across her forehead - but they were fuzzy, as though he were viewing the old memory through a dirty window.

His mind kept returning to that cut on Bella Swan's forehead, and somehow he knew he had made that cut, made it because…because… There was something he needed to take from her…

"Gabriel!"

The speaker was a young woman, petite, blonde, and gray-eyed, who seemed to be in a hurry. He wasn't quite sure yet why he knew her, but at least he knew her name: Elle Bishop. "Hello…Elle."

She came to a stop a foot away from him, carefully gauging his expression and tone of voice. "Do you have any idea why I'm here?"

"To help me recover my memories? I can feel it starting to come back now - I know you, but I just can't remember _how_…"

"Can you remember what made you forget?"

"Not what, Elle - who. Someone did this to me, if I could…just…remember…his _name_!"

"It's Peter," Elle helpfully filled in. "He and Pom-pom stopped you from killing Bella."

The dots began to connect inside Gabriel's head. Pom-pom… Cheerleader… He had hunted a cheerleader once, and the man who had prevented him from acquiring her power for so long, who had thwarted him again in Forks and stolen his memories, was called… "…Peter Petrelli," he growled. "And Claire Bennet. I remember everything now."

"Great, so you know that your ability can make you a little crazy-"

"Yes - I tried to resist the hunger, but you wouldn't let me… You pushed me into using it."

"I'm sorry, Gabriel. What I did was wrong, and I want to make up for it. I can help you like Bella helped me when my power got out of control…"

"You want to help me, Elle? Okay." He smiled coldly, dangerously. "Let's kill your friends."

She took a step back, her demeanor shifting from remorseful and pleased at seeing him again to guardedly defensive. "That's not the kind of help I was offering, Gabriel."

"No? You mean you'd actually have a problem hurting those people? That would be quite a change - the Elle I knew would screw over anybody without batting an eye. You screwed me for the damn Company!"

"I know," she whispered. He couldn't believe it; his words were actually hurting her. "And I already said I'm sorry. I've changed a lot since then."

"Thanks to your _friend_, Bella Swan? She must be very special if she could reform you; that's one more thing about her I'll have to study before her brain goes in the trash."

"Hey!" Elle wasn't just on edge anymore; now she was angry. "Bella's my friend, and if you wanna hurt her you'll have to go through me to do it!"

"I can do that." But before he could make any move to go through Elle, she released her power at full blast, cooking Sylar's skin and frying his organs in his own boiling blood…at least until her charge ran out. Then he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position where he had collapsed on the pavement and, to her utter astonishment, laughed. "You think you can beat me like this? All you can do is exhaust yourself, and I'll just keep healing thanks to Claire. You're wasting your energy, Elle."

She snarled her frustration and blasted him once more, but this time the pain didn't seem to affect him as strongly; he managed to generate and direct a burst of telekinetic energy that knocked her to the ground, smashing the back of her skull against the asphalt hard enough to stun her.

For a moment afterward he lay there, letting himself heal and catching his breath, before getting painfully to his feet and checking on Elle, who seemed to be unconscious. _The question is, what will I do with her now?_ She was the only person in the world he might feel marginally bad about killing (if he allowed himself to), and she could be a useful partner in crime… But no, she'd just made it clear she wouldn't go for that. _Guess she won't be any use to me after all - not alive anyway. _

Her ability was right there for the taking; the only thing stopping him was a thin layer of skin and bone, and he'd put the power to much better use than she would now that she'd been tamed, domesticated, or whatever the hell Bella Swan had done to her. Or at least that was the argument he constructed to justify what he was about to do.

Sylar raised his hand and began cutting into her forehead.

**Well, loose end **_**numero uno**_** (amnesiac Sylar) has been taken care of - he's back with a bang, folks. Is this the end of Elle? She's become a better person and kind of redeemed herself for her past misdeeds so this could be a good place for her story to end; on the other hand, I like Elle too much to really want to kill her (not that that's ever stopped me before) so I'm asking you, the readers, whether you want her to survive or not. **

**Next up, Arthur and Danko return, and the fun just never stops. **


	20. Your Bleeding Heart

**Here we are at the landmark 20th chapter! Alas, it's only about half as long as the previous two, and it's more introspective than action-packed, but whatever. I promise there'll be more action and suspense in the next one. **

Chapter 20: Your Bleeding Heart

_BPOV_

Peter and I found Elle lying in the street, bleeding profusely from her head, with Sylar standing over her - it looked like our worst-case scenario had been realized. Peter took hold of the index finger through which Sylar was channeling his telekinetic power and bent it backward; there was a sharp, splintery sound of bone breaking, followed by a series of louder snaps as he systematically broke at least three more.

"Peter, that's enough! Check on Elle; I'll take it from here."

Sylar's fingers were bent at odd angles, and his entire right arm hung limply from the elbow down; Peter knew that I would disable his superhuman abilities and had inflicted injuries that would diminish his capacity to attack me physically - he might think I was capable of taking on Sylar while he attended to Elle but clearly felt a need to look out for me nonetheless.

Amazingly, even though he had to be in a lot of pain, the killer showed no signs of retreating. He even laughed at me. "Well, I see you're…slightly less pathetic than I remember."

"I'm definitely not as pathetic as you."

He stopped laughing. "You think _I'm_ pathetic? I'm more powerful than you'll ever be, little girl, no matter what new tricks Peter's taught you!"

"Well, power had better be all you ever want out of life, because with all the people you've hurt to get it, everybody hates you. You're a monster. What good does being the most powerful man in the world do if you've got no one to care how 'special' you are?"

Peter called my name; I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he had picked up Elle, which should have irritated her to no end, but she was frighteningly still and silent in his arms. My heart stopped. "Peter," I choked out, "is she…?"

"She's dying. She needs Claire to heal her, like _now_, or she's not gonna make it."

I hurried to his side, ignoring Sylar's enraged shout that we couldn't just walk away from him, and held on to his arm as he teleported back to the Cullens' hotel suite, where we'd left Claire. "What happened to her?" Alice asked, staring at the very precisely made, very deep gash across Elle's forehead.

"Sylar." Recalling Alice's reaction when I'd been hurt at my horrible eighteenth birthday party, I put myself between her and my injured friend. "Do you need to leave?"

"I'm not thirsty…" Alice's nose twitched at the smell of Elle's blood. "But it might be best if I stepped outside anyway. I'm sorry." She practically ran out of the room, looking guilty.

"What about you?" I asked Edward.

"I'm not thirsty either. Anyway, I'd like to talk to him." He nodded at Peter, who was crouched on the floor beside Elle, holding her up while Claire healed her.

"So talk," Peter ordered without taking his eyes off Elle's wound, which was slowly beginning to close. Edward hesitated. "Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of Bella and Claire."

"Very well. Are you insane?"

"No, he isn't!" I said hotly.

Peter finally looked up, giving me a pointed look that said he didn't need me jumping to his defense before turning to Edward with a politely neutral expression. "I don't think I am."

"You pursued a man you believe to be a serial killer - a man who did _this _to your friend - and you took Bella along? That suggests otherwise."

"I didn't make her come with me."

"Perhaps not, but you did let her. She finds enough trouble on her own without someone who should be protecting her allowing her to run headlong into danger. Does her wellbeing mean nothing to you?"

I was incensed, both at the implication that Peter must not care very much about me and at being talked about as if I were a child who needed his permission to do anything, but Peter's glare, though not directed at me, made me hold my tongue. If he hadn't had his hands full with Elle, I was sure he would have punched Edward. "Bella means everything to me," he growled, "but going after Sylar tonight was her choice."

"A choice you shouldn't have left in her hands, given her lack of self-preservation instincts! Haven't you figured out by now that Bella hardly ever knows what's best for her?"

"Hey-"

Peter spoke again before I could voice my objections. "Maybe she doesn't, but she isn't a child, and she isn't stupid. You think I should treat her like she's incapable of making her own decisions? Control her? I won't do that."

"Hey, I think Elle's coming around," Claire said loudly. "Since she hit her head, maybe you should check that her cognitive functions are okay and stuff? Hold up fingers for her to count?"

With Peter distracted, I plucked at Edward's sleeve and asked, "Can I talk to you? Alone?"

"Certainly." He led me into another room, closed the door to give us some privacy, and said, "Before you rail at me for taking your boyfriend to task on his decision to let you chase down murderers with him, you should know that I won't apologize for worrying about your safety. You're still too important to me for me to stop caring what happens to you."

"There's no reason for you to care anymore! We are _over_, Edward! Even if something were to go wrong with me and Peter - and I don't see what could - it's not like we could ever just pick up where we left off. You need to get that through your head."

"I know you aren't my girlfriend anymore - you've made that perfectly clear. But has it never occurred to you that I might care for you whether we're together or not? All I want is for you to be happy."

"Oh…well. That is…unexpected. If this is where you say 'let's just be friends', then I'll need time to think about it. When we met, everything happened so fast between us - and you should know that I…I was pretty much in love with you from the first time I saw you. I never thought of you as just a friend…and I don't know if I can start now."

"Fair enough," he said, and the burning in my face receded a little; at least he wasn't mocking me for having fallen in love before I knew anything about him or using that as evidence that I was too naïve to be left in charge of my own life.

"And no more getting on Peter's case about not 'protecting' me well enough. It's not his job to be my bodyguard or minder, but he does take care of me - I'm still alive, aren't I?"

Edward had no choice but to agree with that. He still didn't look too happy about the way things stood now, but at least we weren't fighting. It was progress.

###

Elle was back in perfect condition - apart from a few bloodstains - by the time Edward and I rejoined her, Claire, and Peter, and ready for round two with Sylar. Unfortunately, he was long gone. She griped loudly at me and Peter for 'letting him get away' before reluctantly following us home. Once we got there, she went straight to her room, slammed the door, and stubbornly ignored everyone, even me, until I finally took Peter's and Claire's advice and left her alone.

I didn't see or hear anything from her until I started getting ready for bed, when someone tapped on the bathroom door so softly that I barely heard it over the running water. I knew it had to be Elle - Peter wouldn't have knocked, and Claire would have waited for me to come out of the bathroom unless she had a matter of life and death to discuss. I mumbled, "Just a minute," around the toothbrush I'd just stuck into my mouth; of course Elle took that as an invitation to come in.

She shuffled inside, closed the door behind her, and perched on the toilet lid. "Can I talk to you?"

I would have pointed out that the best moment for a serious conversation was not while one party was brushing their teeth, but the only sound I could make was a vague "Ermm" that was too ambiguous not to be interpreted as agreement.

Elle took a moment to marshal her thoughts, then blurted out, "I'm sorry."

Whatever I'd expected, it wasn't that. "Hmm?"

"I said it was all your fault Sylar got away, but I know you only let him go because you were more worried about me…and you probably saved my life. So thanks for that."

"Mmm."

"And I wouldn't have needed saving if I hadn't gone looking for him by myself; it was stupid. Are you mad?"

I spat into the sink, rinsed my mouth out, and turned to face her. "I'm not mad, Elle. I don't understand why you did it, and I was scared for you, but I was never angry. I'd love it if you would explain yourself, though." I expected to be told to butt out, but Elle was surprisingly compliant, merely requesting that we relocate; apparently the toilet wasn't a comfortable place to sit for extended periods of time. I telepathically contacted Peter to let him know where I was going and not to wait up - I sensed this might take a while - and followed her across the house to her room.

All the lights were off; it looked like Elle had been sitting in the dark awhile, and as usual I had no idea what might've been going through her head. I switched a lamp on and sat down on the bed. "Come over here. Sit." She curled up at the opposite end of her bed from where I sat, watching me warily as she waited to be read the riot act. "You know how dangerous Sylar is. What made you think you could take him on your own?"

"I didn't plan on fighting him."

"Excuse me? What did you think was going to happen when you found him if he had his memories back?"

Elle looked down; I thought she might actually be embarrassed. "I thought I could talk him out of…you know…doing what he does." She glanced up and, seeing my expression of incredulity, said defensively, "You don't know him like I do. He can be really sweet when he's not-"

"-Not on a murderous rampage?"

"Exactly." She seemed pleased that I got it. I was barely restraining myself from shaking her and telling her she was delusional. "He only kills because he can't control his hunger-"

"It _can_ be controlled, though," I interrupted. "When I first met Peter, he'd absorbed Sylar's main ability and he had the same problem. I eventually shut it off for him, but I wasn't able to right away, and he handled it until then."

"Well, couldn't you do the same thing for Gabriel?" Elle demanded.

I dropped my head into my hands and kneaded my forehead. When I looked up again, she was still watching me with the same hopeful expression. I sighed. "If you could hold him down long enough for me to locate the center of power in his brain and switch it off, then I could permanently shut off his abilities. I'm just not sure how much good that would do. He's so powerful that he might be able to break through any block I could put in his head - Future Peter said that was possible, and it sounds similar to recovering from having his memory erased. Which he just did, in case you hadn't noticed."

"You could take everything," she suggested. "Leave him nothing to recover with."

"And that might make him mad enough to get a gun and blow my head off. What I'm saying, Elle, is that taking his abilities away might not make him a better person. He hasn't stopped killing on his own - he actually goes out of his way to do it - so it seems like he has no problem with being a murderer," I said bluntly.

That drew a slight reaction from Elle, but she wasn't done yet. "I used to hurt people, Bella. I've changed…haven't I?"

"You have," I assured her, "but only because you wanted to."

"And because of you. You were so nice, and you never treated me like some crazy psycho… I think you're the only one who's ever really liked me in a long time."

"It was still your choice; you didn't have to let me help you get back under control. I don't think Sylar wants help." Even if he did, I wasn't prepared to offer it - the man had tried to kill me and had hurt my friends. I couldn't bring myself to tell Elle that, though; she already looked crushed.

"He was the only guy I ever felt anything _real_ for, and it's my fault he became what he is; I just thought maybe we could fix him…" She sniffled.

I scooted up beside her and wrapped my arms around her. "I'm sorry, Elle. I wish there was something I could do, but Sylar's just a bad guy. You need to get over him. He tried to _kill_ you."

She nodded shakily. "I can't believe he did that to me! He let me go once, so I thought he at least cared a little. But I guess not." She buried her face in my neck, and I felt dampness on my skin that could only be tears.

"I'm so sorry." I lifted a hand to her head and hesitantly combed my fingers through her hair, half-expecting to be shoved away. Tonight, though, she didn't seem to mind.

Eventually she calmed down enough to ask, "Can you stay here awhile?"

"You want me to stay with you?" I couldn't hide my surprise; Elle tended to push everyone away when she was sad or upset. Then again, I'd already seen her cry and heard her admit to still having a soft spot for Sylar in spite of everything he'd done, so maybe she figured showing a little more vulnerability wouldn't hurt.

"I don't wanna be alone."

"All right, I'll stay here, but I need to get some sleep - I have class tomorrow. Unless you want to talk more?"

"I don't think so. The guy I like is a murderer, and if I ever see him again I'll have to take him down, and talking about that'll just depress me. 'Night, Bella." She curled up against my side and fell asleep quickly.

I wasn't so lucky. Her last words replayed in a continuous loop through my mind, keeping me awake. Being forced to fight the person you had feelings for had to be one of the worst fates imaginable. But no matter how long I lay staring up at the ceiling, keeping as still as possible so I wouldn't wake Elle, I couldn't think of any way it could be avoided. Sylar was evil, and we would have to deal with him sooner or later. There was no way around that. All I could do was hope that, when an opportunity to stop him for good presented itself, Elle wouldn't have to be the one to do it.


	21. Keep Your Enemies Close

**At long last, here's the chapter where we finally see Arthur and Danko again! Show of hands, how many of you thought I'd forgotten all about them and there would never be a resolution to their part of the story? **

Chapter 21: Keep Your Enemies Close

_Sylar - New York City_

The bar where Sylar found his latest victim was packed and noisy, but he tuned it all out - the blaring music, the raucous cheers from a cluster of middle-aged men with their eyes glued to the football game on the flat-screen TV in the corner, the chatter, everything. He was back in his element, about to acquire a new ability, and nothing else mattered. The kitchen where he killed James Martin was small and messy, even before Sylar painted the floor with the shapeshifter's blood.

Dissecting the brain and replicating the ability was a familiar routine that he slipped into easily, but something was wrong; the acquisition of new power didn't bring the rush he remembered. He had just added a new ability to his arsenal and he was one step closer to being the most special person in the world, but now he was alone with only a corpse for company. He had been alone since leaving New Hampshire, just like he'd been alone for most of his life, both as Gabriel Gray and as Sylar. Edward Cullen was the only friend he'd had in a very long time, but he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the telepathic vampire since his fateful run-in with Bella Swan, which wouldn't have bothered him except that the girl's words had stuck in his mind.

What good were all his powers with no one to be impressed by them? If nobody _realized_ how special he was, was his life as Sylar really that much of a step up from working on clocks in his obscure little shop in Queens? He still didn't matter to anyone - except maybe his enemies, but they probably never thought about him unless he was trying to kill them - and wasn't the whole point of his ability-gathering to be important?

Looking up, he caught his reflection in a full-length free-standing mirror placed improbably - or perhaps not, considering whose house this was - in the center of the living room and saw that he had subconsciously used his new shapeshifting ability for the first time, turning himself into a perfect replica of…_Bella Swan_? Bella Swan, who had caused him to question his lonely, murderous existence. He was content before she opened her big mouth, or if he wasn't he'd never noticed it. _"Damn you!"_ he snarled and slammed his fist into the mirror, shattering _her_ face into a hundred tiny, fragmented pieces.

In the ringing silence following the crash of breaking glass, as he concentrated on reassuming his own form, his hypersensitive ears picked up the sounds of a large vehicle stopping outside James Martin's house and a dozen men wearing heavy boots disembarking. _What the…?_ They - whoever they were - converged quietly (to a normal person's ears at least) on the house, cutting off every possible exit.

Realizing that his chances of getting out unnoticed were almost nonexistent, Sylar slipped into his victim's bedroom. He would stay out of sight there until he knew what these mysterious intruders wanted, then attack if he deemed it necessary, or if they attacked him first.

They didn't; after finding Martin's body they didn't bother to search the rest of the house, so they remained unaware of his presence and he was able to listen in on them. They knew Martin was a shapeshifter - in fact they had come to his house to capture him so that his ability could be studied. At least, they assumed that was what the 'government white-coats' wanted with 'freaks like him'. It was something their leader said, though, that interested Sylar the most. Before giving the order to ship out, he muttered to himself, "Petrelli won't be happy about this."

So the government was hunting down posthumans, and a Petrelli was behind it. That almost certainly meant they _weren't_ being taken for experimentation - if that were the objective, Primatech had facilities specifically designed for those kinds of experiments, and the Petrelli family had strong ties to the Company. What would any of them need the government for, then? _This might be worth looking into. _

_Arthur Petrelli & Emile Danko - Building 26_

"Explain to me why you failed to retrieve James Martin, Mr. Danko. While you're at it, you can also tell me why we've still seen no sign of Claire Bennet and that Swan girl even though you've supposedly been making every effort to find them for _months_ now!"

Danko ground his teeth - he knew that would come up. Being unable to track down two teenage girls was frustrating and embarrassing, and now it looked like his boss was running out of patience. "We found Martin at his house, sir, but he was dead. The top of his head had been cut off, and someone had removed his brain and torn it apart."

"Was the killer still there?"

"The body wasn't even cold yet, so he or she couldn't have gone far, but we didn't see anyone suspicious. We weren't looking, though - our mission was to capture Martin."

A look of displeasure slid briefly across Arthur's face; Danko saw it, and his natural wariness increased slightly. He had done a little homework on Arthur Petrelli and discovered that the last few people who'd worked closely with him had ended up dead. If not for the fact that someone needed to get these dangerous freaks off the streets and in cages where they belonged, Danko might be rethinking his current job. There were other, safer places to work…

At last Arthur sighed and said, "All right. I'm giving you a new top-priority assignment. I want you to read every file I have on a man named-"

The door to Arthur's office was thrown open and one of Danko's soldiers strode in without knocking or requesting permission to enter. "What in the hell do you think you're doing, Corporal?" Danko demanded.

"Infiltrating this operation, sir," the corporal replied with a smirk no soldier would ever wear while addressing their commanding officer. His features rippled, shifted, and suddenly they were looking at a totally different man.

"Well, it looks like you don't need to read up on Gabriel after all," Arthur remarked. "Gabriel - I wasn't expecting to see you here. I hadn't heard anything about you for so long, I thought Angela's attempt at reforming you must have taken."

"You mean her attempt to manipulate me," Sylar tersely corrected him. "But I found out the truth - I'm never going to be used again, not by her and not by you. And call me Sylar."

"Okay, Sylar it is," Arthur said amiably while Danko wondered what the heck was going on. "What brings you here?"

"Saw your men come for the shapeshifter tonight. I was curious. So you want Claire and Bella Swan? Why?"

Arthur raised his eyebrows. "Does it really matter to you?"

"I guess it doesn't. They're in Hanover, New Hampshire. So is Peter." He refrained from mentioning Elle; she might be captured or killed if she tried to protect Bella, as she almost certainly would, but he wasn't going to tell Danko anything about her. If she got hurt, it would be her own fault.

"This is the best news we've had in a while. Thank you, Gabriel. Mr. Danko, assemble your best strike team."

"Roger that. We'll leave for New Hampshire ASAP."

_Next day - Hanover, NH_

Upon arriving in Hanover, Danko did some recon and quickly decided that it would it be best to wait until his targets separated before making a move. His chance came shortly after lunch, when Swan left for the Dartmouth library. Petrelli went with her, leaving Bennet at home with an unknown female.

"All right men, we're splitting up. Half of you are gonna stay here and keep eyes on the Bennet girl; the rest of you are with me."

"Sir, should we grab Bennet now? She's the least dangerous one, right?"

"Negative. I want to move on all three at the same time." Danko didn't know how close they had to be to communicate telepathically, but he didn't want to risk one of them warning the others. "You just sit tight and keep your eyeballs glued on Bennet. Wait for the other girl to leave if possible; I don't want civilians involved in this if they don't have to be."

"Yes, sir."

###

The minutes Petrelli spent looking up the books Swan needed and fetching them for her seemed to drag on forever, until Danko wondered if he should just call in his men and try to take them both together, since it didn't look like they would be splitting up any time soon. Then he heard Swan say, "Thanks for your help, but you don't need to hang around if you don't want to. I have some reading to do - you know how absorbed I can get when I read. I won't be much company."

"I don't mind watching you work." He moved to stand behind her chair, his hands sliding over her shoulders.

Swan hunched forward, pulling out of his grasp. "I won't get any work done if you do that."

"You want me to leave?"

"No, but I think you should."

"See you in a couple hours then." He leaned in as if trying to read over her shoulder; she turned her head so that their lips met in a brief, intense, awkwardly-angled goodbye kiss. Then he straightened up and walked away, leaving her alone at last.

Danko put down the newspaper he'd been using as camouflage and followed at a discreet distance; unsure whether he was in Petrelli's telepathic range, he focused his thoughts on recalling all the Rolling Stones lyrics he'd ever heard. Once outside the library building, he radioed his men and told them to pick up the girls, reminding the unit he was sending after Swan to get the tranquilizer dart in her before she saw them - they wouldn't be able to touch her if she had time to project one of her force fields. He performed a cursory visual sweep of his surroundings, making sure there was no one close enough to interfere before pulling his own gun and firing.

###

Feeling a sharp sting on his neck, Peter automatically lifted a hand to swat at the source of the pain - which turned out to be some kind of dart rather than the insect he expected. "What the hell?"

"It's a hypodermic dart, used as a remote injector. They're usually for handling dangerous animals in zoos and wildlife preserves - sedating them for transport and veterinary examinations - but they work just as well on humans."

This explanation came from a man with pale gray eyes and thinning white hair who was rapidly closing the distance between himself and Peter…and casually pointing a gun at him. Peter didn't know what to make of this; his first thought was that Arthur must have finally found them and this guy must be the latest person he'd found to do his dirty work - who _else_ would shoot him with a hypodermic dart? They weren't exactly common weapons - but if he worked for Arthur then he would know all about Peter's powers. So why was he approaching him so openly? The man had to be pretty confident in his own abilities, which meant he would be easy to take out…or that he was an extremely skilled fighter.

He tried to take Danko's gun from him, but nothing happened. His telekinesis wasn't working. That was when Peter began to suspect he was in deep trouble.

"Of course, I didn't inject you with a sedative - you metabolize toxins too fast for a tranquilizer to be effective. That dart contained a drug to dampen your powers. Now, I'm taking you to your father; whether you get there in one piece is up to you."

Even without his telepathy, Peter could read this man well enough to know he would shoot with the slightest provocation - he actually _wanted_ to, and while Peter wasn't exactly afraid of getting shot, he knew that injuries would make getting out of this predicament a lot harder. "Okay. You got me."

"Walk." Danko indicated the direction with his gun and walked behind his prisoner, keeping the gun trained unwaveringly on the back of Peter's head, ready to put a bullet in his brain at the slightest sign of resistance and maintaining enough distance between them that Peter couldn't turn around and knock the weapon out of his hand. "Not such a hero after all, are you?"

"I'm not suicidal," Peter retorted. "Dying isn't my idea of fun."

"Freak."

Peter didn't bother answering. Danko took him to the van he and his men had left in the nearest parking area, where he finally sedated him. He intended to try to keep Petrelli and the two girls away from each other during transport, but in case that wasn't possible he didn't want to give them a chance to talk to each other and plan an escape.

_Building 26_

Peter woke up in a small, totally dark enclosed space. The drug Danko had given him was still in his system; most of his powers were still inaccessible to him. The only thing the drug didn't seem to have suppressed was his mental shield, but before he could figure out what use being able to shield his mind might be in his current situation, the room - at least, he assumed he was in a room - was suddenly illuminated in blinding white light.

When his eyes adjusted, he saw that he was in a cell with bare metal walls, no windows, no door, and no furnishings of any kind. Also, Arthur was in there with him, though Peter was positive he'd been alone just a second ago. Either there _was_ a door and it was very well-concealed, or his father had phased through the wall.

"Hello, Peter. Been a while." Peter glared up at him from where he sat on the floor but said nothing. "It's good to see you again."

"The feeling isn't mutual."

"That's no way to talk to your father."

"Cut the crap. You didn't come here just to annoy me. What do you want?"

"All right, if you want to get straight to the point…" Arthur took a step closer, hand outstretched.

Peter flinched back from his father's touch, but there was nowhere to go; he couldn't avoid him forever. Arthur's fingers wrapped around his throat, not strangling but merely providing the physical contact he needed to use his ability, and Peter mimicked what Bella had done in similar encounters with Arthur, channeling all his energy into shielding himself.

"What are you doing?" Arthur hissed. "You shouldn't be able to fight me! The drugs-" Frustrated, he reflexively tightened his grip, constricting Peter's windpipe.

Peter grabbed his wrist and ripped the older man's hand off him. "I can't use my abilities until the drugs wear off," he agreed, rubbing his sore throat, "but the shield I copied from Bella isn't something I use, exactly - it's just a part of me now. There's no way of turning it off. So now you know you won't get what you want from me, will you _leave me alone_?"

Arthur ignored his request. "Ah yes, Miss Swan - so unfortunate what happened to her."

Peter's heart immediately started to beat faster. _I shouldn't have gone with Danko without a fight; if Bella's been hurt… I should've tried to fight him, even if he would've shot me!_ "What about Bella? If you've done _anything_ to her I swear I'll-" He was on his feet now and had actually taken a step in Arthur's direction, fists clenched.

Arthur sighed and telekinetically pushed Peter away, slamming him into the wall. "Calm down, son. I'm in no position to harm your girlfriend, because she never made it here. Sylar has her."

_Seven hours earlier_

Following their leader's instructions to the letter, Danko's soldiers had knocked Bella out and removed her from the library via the nearest fire escape door without anyone seeing them. Everything seemed to be going smoothly, but before they could get her to the transport van something totally unexpected happened: mild-mannered Private Jenkins suddenly pulled out his weapon and gunned down the rest of the team.

The features of Private Jenkins distorted and warped away as Sylar reverted to his usual appearance before turning his attention to the unconscious girl. "So you don't think I matter to anyone, huh? Well, I'm going to fix that. Starting with you."

**Well this seems like a nice place to leave things: Arthur has Peter, Sylar has Bella, and we have no idea what happened to Claire and Elle. Please don't kill me!**


	22. Sympathy for the Devil

**My first update of 2012! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. My resolution: this will be the year I finish this story. Do you guys realize I started it way back in 20****10****? Yeesh! So I'd like to thank everyone who's stuck with me all this time - you know who you are.**

Chapter 22: Sympathy for the Devil

_Claire Bennet & Elle Bishop - Hanover, NH_

"Dammit! Elle, Peter and Bella aren't answering their phones!" Claire put her cell phone down and cast a despairing look around her room, which had been thoroughly trashed in her struggle with Danko's soldiers. The only reason they hadn't succeeded in capturing her was that Elle was there and they didn't know about her ability; thanks to the element of surprise, the two girls had managed to take down their attackers, but only barely. "We have to assume these guys got them."

"Great. Could this get any worse?" Elle had her fingers knuckles-deep in a bloody hole in Claire's shoulder, trying to dig out a bullet so the wound could heal, and it wasn't putting her in a great mood.

"Yeah, actually, it _could_ be worse. They could've got us too."

"Good point. Hey, I think I got it!" Elle closed her blood-slickened fingers around the tiny piece of metal and yanked it out of Claire's body with a wet, sucking _pop_. "That was really gross."

"Uh-huh. Now it's your turn."

"I don't need healing - the bullet barely grazed me." Owing to the fact that she had been giving him her full blast, Elle's assailant hadn't had the best aim when he'd fired at her.

"You're still bleeding-"

"It's nothing a little Neosporin and a Band-Aid won't fix."

"But you've gotta be in pain, and we need to be a hundred percent if we're going to help Peter and Bella," Claire argued, and Elle finally gave in.

"That does feel better," she grudgingly admitted after Claire healed her wound - or scratch, as she insisted on calling it. "Now what? Are you gonna try to locate Bella?"

Claire shook her head. "After all the time and trouble Arthur's put into hunting her-" neither of them had even for a second entertained the notion that anyone else might be behind this "-he'll have her guarded pretty heavily. We're gonna need help."

_Right, 'cause we know so many people who'd be willing and able to help us if we told them our friends were kidnapped by a power-draining maniac who I think might still be dead as far as the general population is aware…_ It was all Elle could do not to sound scornful as she asked, "Got anyone in mind?"

"Edward and Alice Cullen."

Elle's mouth fell open. "The vampires? But we don't like them…do we?"

"We don't like Edward on principle because he broke Bella's heart," Claire patiently explained, "but he says he still loves her. If that's true, then he should be willing to help us rescue her."

"Assuming we can even find him and his sister. You didn't exchange phone numbers with someone you hate on principle, did you?"

"No, I saw the name of the place they're staying on the hotel stationery in their room; I'm hoping they're still there." Claire maneuvered around and over the bodies of Danko's unconscious team (at least she hoped they were only unconscious) to her dresser. Everything on and inside it had been rattled when Claire had slammed herself and the man who had her in a chokehold into it, but after a moment of digging she found her car keys among the jumbled contents of one of the drawers. "Okay, let's go."

"Wait."

"What? Now isn't the time for dawdling, Elle!"

"Shouldn't we wash up a little and change your shirt? If we're going to talk to a couple of vamps, we might not want to show up dripping blood. Just a thought."

_Sylar & Bella Swan - precise location unknown_

_BPOV_

"It's about time you woke up."

In fact I was only half-conscious, but hearing Sylar's voice pushed me to awaken fully. I jerked upright, or tried to - my movement was hampered by the fact that my legs were tied together, my hands bound behind my back. Unable to sit up, I flopped back onto the ground…which was moving. I was in the back of a van, the windowless kind that were great for hiding kidnap victims - like me.

Sylar was driving, eyes darting between the road and my reflection in the rearview mirror. "Stop struggling; don't want you hurting yourself."

I went still and stiff in an instant, then slowly forced my body to relax a little. "What's going on here?"

"You were almost captured by Danko."

"Who?"

Sylar's dark eyes flicked onto me again. "He works for Arthur Petrelli. You know who _he_ is, don't you? Peter's father?"

"Yes, I know him. Are you taking me to him?"

"No. I'm saving you from him."

This reply was so mind-boggling that I was rendered speechless. As far as I knew it wasn't in Sylar's nature to help anyone but himself, and while part of me desperately wanted to question him, I was afraid doing so might make him rethink his…whatever it was that had prompted him to rescue me from Danko. If my rescuer was anyone else I would have assumed they were simply altruistic, but Sylar probably had a more sinister motive.

My heart began to pound as I tried to imagine what he might have in store for me, and Sylar seemed to hear it. "Hey, what are you doing back there?" His voice was sharp, carrying a strongly implied warning that if I was doing anything I shouldn't, I had better stop.

"Where are we? Where are you taking me?" To my dismay, _my_ voice trembled; my fear was all too obvious.

"We crossed the state line into Vermont an hour ago."

Vermont. I closed my eyes, trying to recall how far Hanover was from the border so I could calculate how long I'd been out, but the numbers stubbornly remained just out of my reach. I had more important problems to work on anyway. "Sylar?"

"What?"

He sounded bored, almost annoyed, and I nearly lost my nerve. "Um, I just wanted to know…um…what you intend to do with me. Because if all you want is my ability, you wouldn't need to take me to Vermont just to kill me," I added in a rush, praying I was right.

"Do you remember the things you said to me last time? You said no one cares about me; you called me pathetic." His voice shook with anger. "Well, you're going to help me fix that. Now shut up before I change my mind about killing you."

###

After what seemed like hours, Sylar stopped the van and got out. I waited a few minutes; when he didn't come back, I started pulling franticly at my bonds. If I could just get my hands loose, untying the ropes around my legs would be easy, and then I could work on getting out of this van - Sylar had taken the keys, so I couldn't escape in it. I just hoped he had parked somewhere I could find cover once I was out.

Unfortunately the rope was tough; it wouldn't give at all. Then the double doors at the van's rear were flung open, revealing an angry Sylar. A wave of telekinetic power hit me, slamming me down flat. I yelped in pain - the thin carpet covering the van's steel floor provided practically no cushioning. When he raised his hand again I instinctively tried to protect myself by blocking his powers, which only made him angrier.

"No. You're not allowed to do that." He seized the front of my blouse at the neck and dragged me closer while I squirmed uselessly against him. "Undo your little trick. _Now._"

"Why?" I demanded breathlessly. "So you can kill me?"

With his free hand Sylar reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a pocketknife, deftly snapping open the five-inch, very sharp-looking blade. "If I decide I want to hurt you, I don't need my powers to do it." He pressed the cool, flat metal side to my cheek. I whimpered. "You may be able to block me, but you're still tied up and I'm still the one with the weapon. Now, can you behave, or do I have to use this?"

"N-no." I quickly removed the block on his powers.

He put the knife down, positioned me carefully so that I was sitting with my back against the van's side, and bent down to retrieve something he'd dropped when he opened the van and saw me trying to escape, which turned out to be a fast food takeout bag. "For you."

I stared at the bag, realizing that I hadn't eaten in a while. I was hungry, but any food offered by Sylar had to be considered questionable. Seeing that I had serious misgivings about accepting anything from him, he pointed out that if he wanted to harm me he wouldn't need to use poison. This assertion, while far from reassuring, was certainly true enough. "All right. Untie my hands." He eyed me with obvious suspicion. I sighed impatiently. "I'm not going to try anything; I just need my hands to eat, unless you want to watch me starve."

He reluctantly cut the tie binding my wrists and sat beside me while I ate, watching me. It was unnerving. After I finished he gathered up the empty food wrappers, but didn't seem to want to go dispose of them. _Probably afraid to leave me unguarded,_ I thought resentfully. Well, if he was going to hang around, I might as well try to start a conversation; his silent staring was both creepy and a little aggravating. "…So, I still don't know why I'm here."

"You're here because you made me realize that I'm… I don't want to be…alone."

"You don't want to be alone?" I repeated disbelievingly. "So your solution is to make me your…what? Companion? Captive audience? Why _me_? If you wanted company, why didn't you take Elle? _She_ likes you - you might not even need to tie her up!"

"Thanks to you, Elle and I don't see eye-to-eye anymore."

"Is that why you tried to kill her?"

"The only people I wanted to kill were you and Peter, but she said I'd have to go through her to get to you." He shrugged. "She was in my way."

"And you wonder why nobody likes you," I muttered.

Instead of being offended, Sylar seemed interested. "What do you mean?"

"Clearly you don't care about anyone but yourself. That's why you can't relate to people - you have no empathy." That was also why, once he'd figured out that he was lonely, he tried to force a connection by kidnapping me and tying me up so I couldn't get away; I doubted he saw any other way. It was sad, but as I looked at Sylar I couldn't quite bring myself to feel sympathy for him.

"And Elle's a sociopath," he snapped, "but she changed after meeting you. What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything to her!" I tried to wriggle away, but Sylar grabbed my arm before I'd put more than a couple of inches between us. "I just helped her work through some issues…" I winced as he squeezed my bicep. "Please let go, you're hurting me."

He did let go, but then he bound my hands again. At least this time they were tied in front instead of behind my back; it was slightly less uncomfortable. "Why," he asked as he wound his rope around my wrists, "did you care about helping Elle 'work through issues'?" He tied it off and his gaze moved up to my face. "You aren't her therapist."

"No, I'm not but…Arthur Petrelli locked us up in the same cell in Pinehearst, and she took care of me - I had a sprained ankle. I guess we bonded over being in a bad situation together. After that…she didn't have anywhere to go. I tried to help her because no one else wanted to. That doesn't mean I'm making a career out of helping troubled posthumans, though," I added quickly. "Besides, Elle _wanted_ to be helped - I don't think you do." I cringed and shrank down, anticipating some form of retaliation for my observations.

"What makes you think you know anything about what I want?"

"Are you going to quit killing people?" I asked timidly.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Sylar snapped.

"Well, your penchant for murder is kind of the reason you aren't Mr. Popularity." Slowly, I reached out and took Sylar's hand in both of mine. I didn't like touching him, but right now it looked like connecting with the serial killer was my best chance at staying alive. "I've heard about your…hunger. I know the things you do... It isn't your fault." I was lying - I'd seen in a scene from Elle's past that he had struggled with being what he was at first, but since then he seemed to have given in and embraced his bloodthirsty nature. Luckily he bought my lie; it did let him off the hook after all. "If you'd let me, I could take the hunger away."

He jerked away as if I'd burned him, glaring. "You want to take away my powers."

_Yes._ "No! You wouldn't have to give it all up, you could keep all the other stuff; maybe you could even learn a new way of copying abilities without hurting people, like Peter does-"

Sylar cut me off with an angry growl. "I _tried_ to stop killing once, and you know what, Bella? That just wasn't _me!_ I'm not like your precious Peter-"

"I know that! You're not half the man he is."

"Well, your hero is gone." He had my hair in a painfully tight grip; I couldn't move my head, and if I tried to close my eyes or take them off his face he pulled harder, forcing me to focus and absorb what he was saying. "I don't know what his father has in store for him, but I'd bet it's nothing pleasant. Danko sent soldiers to capture Claire and Elle too, so I'm all you've got now. Get used to it."

Even knowing it would cause him to hurt me, I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to block out his words. I would _not_ imagine what Arthur might do to Peter…

An awful screech like metal tearing assaulted my ears, and then Sylar's restraining, punishing hold was suddenly gone. I was still being held, but the arms around me now were gentle and comforting. "Bella, are you all right? I've got you; you're safe now."

"I'm not hurt," I whispered. "Thank you, Edward."

**I had an idea for a scene in which Sylar shapeshifted into Peter and put the moves on Bella, but decided that might be a bit too creepy. If anyone would like to see it, though, I might include it with the next chapter. Also thought about leaving the identity of Bella's rescuer a mystery, but figured it would've been kind of obvious anyway.**

**Next up: Sylar's fate is decided, and we get to see some more of Peter's 'adventures' inside Building 26. **


	23. Friend & Foe

**This is the chapter with a little something to please everyone: tough!badass!Bella, Peter trying to get out of his current predicament without his powers, and a renewal Sylar and Edward's unlikely friendship. There's even a hint of Syelle, which is something I never thought I'd write. But, like Claire/Gretchen, it's canon, so here it is. Please tell me how I did capturing their strange and probably highly dysfunctional relationship. **

Chapter 23: Friend & Foe

_BPOV_

It should have been a relief when Edward shredded through my bonds, restoring the circulation in my legs, but I could only think that if _he_ was the one freeing me, then Sylar must have been telling the truth about Arthur having caught Peter. Deep down I already knew something must have happened to him, or he would have gotten to me much sooner; it had taken Edward _hours_, but then, he wasn't a locater or a teleporter. Speaking of which… "…How did you find me?" I mumbled as he lifted me and jumped out the open back of Sylar's van - the rear doors had been torn away.

The car Edward had arrived in was parked behind the van; its headlights seared my retinas, so I naturally turned my head away, burying my face in Edward's neck, and didn't see the answer to my question running toward us until she shouted, "Bella! Bella, are you okay?"

"She's fine as far as I can tell," Edward answered for me.

"Then why are you carrying her?"

I realized Claire had a point. My legs were a little stiff and filled with pins and needles from being tied together so long, but they could probably hold me. "She's right, Edward. You can put me down now."

He hesitantly set me on my feet, keeping an arm around my waist just in case I turned out to be weaker than I thought. Claire pushed him away, and then her arms encircled me instead, squeezing the air from my lungs. "Thank God you're all right! Elle and I were attacked at home - we barely got away, and we don't know where Peter is… I think someone must've got him."

Her words sent a twinge of almost physical pain through me, but I quickly quelled it; I wouldn't help Peter by panicking. "We'll get him back, don't worry."

"How do you plan to do that?" Edward asked. "None of us are clairvoyants; Claire said she was only able to track you because of a chemical substance in her blood which was passed to you via a blood transfusion, creating some sort of psychic link between you." His tone conveyed what I took to be skepticism.

"As strange as it sounds, that's the truth."

"Oh, I'm sure it is - I read in Claire's mind that she believes every word she said to be true, and since she is neither delusional nor a pathological liar-"

"Of course I'm not!"

"-I have no reason not to believe her. That still leaves the problem of us having no means to find your boyfriend, though."

I wracked my brains for a solution, and didn't like the one I came up with. It was the only one I could see, though. "Sylar knew about Arthur's plans for us - he must have seen him recently. He might know where he's working from now."

Claire's face wrinkled in disgust. "You've gotta be kidding me. No freakin' way is Sylar going to help us!"

"He won't want to," I agreed, "so we'll just have to force him. Where is he?"

"He tried to run after I pulled him off you, but Alice and Elle chased after him, so I doubt he'll get far. Elle seemed particularly intent on ensuring he doesn't escape, and she had some very _interesting_ ideas about how he should be dealt with. It's strange - she seemed to care about him, yet also resents him and wouldn't mind hurting him. If I may ask, how did you come to know such a person?"

Sensing the burning curiosity behind Edward's 'polite' interest, I grinned humorlessly. "She was my cellmate."

"Excuse me?"

"Long story."

"I see." Quite understandably, he still looked dubious.

While Claire filled him in on the Pinehearst episode, I walked a few yards to where Elle and Alice were working on subduing Sylar, ready to lend a hand if needed; Claire knew the story well enough to tell it without my help, and I had more immediate concerns at the moment. My help turned out to be unnecessary - Sylar was face down on the ground with Alice pinning his arms over his back. He was trying to throw her off him, but of course she was too strong. Then he produced a burst of radiation, burning Alice's hands. She let go and he scrambled to his feet, ready to run…until Elle electrocuted him. "That's what you get for trying to kill me!"

Before he could recover fully, I found the mechanism in his mind that controlled his abilities and switched it off. Realizing what I'd done, he let out an inarticulate, enraged yell and then fell to his knees, looking defeated.

"What just happened?" Alice asked softly. The palms of her hands were burned black, but as I watched the damaged skin flaked off, leaving them white and unblemished.

"I think Bella took away his powers."

I nodded. "It was easier than I thought it'd be. Turns out his power works a lot like Peter's, so it was practically familiar territory. Wasn't this what you wanted, Elle?"

"Yeah, it was." Still, as she stared at the apparently beaten man, she looked like she might be having second thoughts.

Claire appeared at my side, Edward close behind her. "Are you gonna interrogate him now? Or will you have Edward…?"

"No, Edward only hears what's in someone's mind at the moment - I don't think he could pick information out of Sylar's head unless he's thinking about it."

"Which he currently is not; he's wallowing in anger and self-pity over the loss of his abilities and thinking some highly uncomplimentary things about you."

It was about what I'd expected. "Great, I'll have to talk to him. Listen, okay? In case he thinks anything useful?" Edward promised he would, and I approached the former murderer cautiously. He might not have his powers anymore, but he could still be dangerous. "Hey Sylar? Gabriel? Look at me."

His head snapped up. "What do you want now?"

"I want you to tell me where Peter and Arthur are. You know, don't you?"

"Why should I help you?"

"Because if you do, I might consider giving you your powers back."

"Are you _crazy_?" Claire exclaimed.

I ignored her, continuing to address Sylar. "Not the thing that lets you take abilities from other people, obviously, but you could keep what you've already got."

"How generous of you," he snarled.

I shrugged. "It's either that, or you can be completely ordinary."

He gave my offer about five minutes' thought, until Elle's patience ran out and she kicked him in the knee, causing his leg to buckle. "Make up your mind already - we don't have all night."

"Okay. We'll need to head to the nearest airport…"

"We're not getting on a plane," I said sharply.

"Right, I guess being fugitives limits your travel options."

"No," Claire retorted, "it's just that airports tend to be crowded and we don't trust you around people."

"Well then I hope there's plenty of gas in your car, because we have a long drive ahead of us."

_End BPOV_

_Peter & Arthur Petrelli - Building 26_

"Still haven't given up huh?"

Arthur sighed. "I don't understand why you're being so difficult, Peter. I'm not the bad guy here. The work I'm doing-"

"You mean holding people prisoner here?" Peter had been in his cell for a whole day, during which time Arthur had continued dosing him with his power-suppressing drug, restraining him with telekinesis when Peter resisted the injections. He'd also been very talkative, so Peter had learned a lot about what went on in Building 26; Arthur had taken great pleasure in describing how he'd sent Danko after Peter's friends first in hopes of drawing him, Bella, and Claire out, and then when that didn't work he'd changed the plan to simply rounding up all the evolved humans he could, which he assured Peter would have happened anyway. "You really think I'd ever willingly be a part of that?"

"As I've already explained to you, Peter, my goal isn't to wipe out our kind. I'm just trying to make improvements. You've seen the damage it can cause when unstable people like Sylar wind up with powers they shouldn't have; all I want is to ensure that the ones with power really deserve it-"

"And if making these 'improvements' just happens to give you the opportunity to create your own little super-powered army, that's just an added bonus," Peter interrupted him a second time. "So I'll say it again: I am never going to work with you!"

"Not even if I let you have your powers back? You could use them to find the Swan girl; if you cooperated with me, I'd even give her back to you after I extract the catalyst from her."

"I don't even need to read your mind to know you're lying. Even if you weren't I wouldn't take you up on it, because Bella doesn't _need_ me to find her."

"You think she can escape Sylar?" Arthur asked incredulously.

Peter smirked. "If anyone can it's her. She got away from you...how many times now?"

"You-!"

"Now leave. I don't want to talk to you anymore."

Arthur huffed in frustration. "You always were difficult, even as a child."

"You were always a control freak." Peter was staring straight through his father at the wall now, his tone dismissive - Arthur realized he was being brushed off, and it angered him more than he wanted to admit. When had Peter become so good at pushing his buttons?

"This is a one-time offer, you know. If you refuse to work with me now I won't ask again."

Peter just shrugged. Arthur pulled the usual hypodermic syringe out of his inside jacket pocket, shoved its needle into the scabbed-over pinprick wound in the crook of Peter's arm and depressed the plunger, forcing the thick, viscous liquid into his vein so fast it was painful. Then he stormed out of the cell, fuming.

###

True to his word, Arthur didn't come back again. Next time the drugs began to wear off, one of Danko's soldiers showed up to give Peter a fresh injection. The man, who had the name Dysart stenciled on his uniform, was surly, taciturn…and he had no special abilities whatsoever, apart from his proficiency with firearms. He entered the cell with his weapon cocked and issued the customary warning of "One wrong move and I'll shoot!"

Peter rolled his eyes; did the guy really have to be such a walking cliché? "So you're my new minder, huh?"

"Your father doesn't want to deal with you anymore, and I drew the short straw."

"Then inject me and get it over with."

Dysart took out the syringe and rolled it across the floor toward Peter. "You have medical training - you do it."

"This drug is the only thing keeping me in here, and you expect me to shoot it up myself? Why in the world would I do that?"

For an answer, Dysart gestured emphatically with his gun. Still Peter hesitated, sizing him up and trying to guess the most likely outcome if he fought him. He was definitely a lot less dangerous than Arthur, but the fact that he was armed and Peter wasn't gave him a clear advantage. If he fired there was a chance he wouldn't hit any vital organs, but only a very slim one; he was a soldier, after all - he'd probably shot at moving targets before. _If I could get him to come closer I could take the gun away…_

Meanwhile, Dysart was growing impatient. "Pick it up! Do it now!"

There was an edge of panic in his voice; who knew what kind of horror stories about what Peter was capable of he'd been listening to? He needed to be lulled into a false sense of security before he would approach him, and it didn't look like that would happen today. Sighing, Peter leaned forward to pick up the syringe; Dysart's finger twitched nervously on his weapon's trigger.

Peter injected himself, playing up the discomfort to make himself appear weak and unthreatening. It seemed to work - Dysart looked half disappointed, half disgusted, but he didn't let his guard down. Not yet, anyway.

_Edward, Alice, Bella, Claire, Elle & Sylar_

The girls didn't want to get into a car with Sylar, so he climbed back into his stolen van while they rode in Claire's Charger. Because the Charger didn't have room for everyone, Edward ended up in the van with him. Being alone with the vampire wasn't part of his plan - in fact nothing that went down after Bella's crew caught up with him was - but now that it had happened he figured he might as well make the most of it.

"It was nothing personal," he told his onetime friend.

"Excuse me?"

"Kidnapping Bella - I didn't do it to hurt you or anything. I actually like you."

Edward didn't even blink. "I'm sure you do; we're the same after all."

"We are?"

"In some ways. It's in our nature to kill…and to act selfishly, which is how I know you weren't thinking of hurting me when you took Bella. I doubt you were thinking of anything besides yourself. At my worst I wasn't so different from you, except that I killed for blood rather than brains, and I remember that there was no one else who was terribly important to me during that time. I was losing what little humanity I had left, you see."

Sylar nodded; he knew exactly how it felt when your humanity began slipping away. "You came back from it, though. Do you think I can ever do that?"

There was a short pause before Edward answered. "Certain things I heard in Elle's and Claire's thoughts led me to believe that your motivation to kill comes from this ability of yours - some sort of special intuition? You aren't going to continue killing now that it's gone, are you?"

"Of course I won't." He never killed anyone unless he gained something from their death. If killing Bella would undo what she had done to him, then he might consider…

"I wouldn't if I were you," Edward growled. "Bella means a great deal to me, and if you should try to harm her in any way I guarantee you will not like the consequences."

"What is it about that girl that makes her so important to everybody?" Edward just glared. Sylar sighed and said, "All right, I'll leave her alone-"

"Good."

_-Although she probably won't appreciate you looking out for her,_ he finished in his head. _Too hung up on Peter._

"I'm aware," Edward said coolly. "They're together now."

"I figured as much." Then, because it seemed appropriate, he awkwardly added, "Sorry." After all, Edward had cared for this girl so much that he wanted to raise her from the dead; seeing her with someone else couldn't be easy for him. _Not that I should care. Friends are a pain in the ass. _

"Agreed." The vampire's lips curved upward in a small smile. "Not caring is so much easier."

"You know, you don't have to help save Peter," Sylar said after a moment.

"Gabriel-"

"If he never came back you could have her all to yourself."

"But _he's_ the one she wants. I want her to be happy."

"More than you want _her_?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Would you get rid of everyone else Elle cared about just to eliminate competition as the most important person in her life?"

"How do you-?"

"-Know about your history with her? It wasn't hard to figure out - I spent hours in a car with her, and she thought about you a lot. Then there's the fact that you tried to kill her-"

"Which should tell you that I don't love her the way you do Bella," Sylar snapped.

"Or that you couldn't bear to see her side with anyone else over you. I've seen it before."

The human was suddenly reminded that, while Edward _appeared_ younger, he actually had several years on him, and probably understood the human condition better than Sylar ever would, enhanced intuition or no. It was extremely irritating. "Shut up about Elle," he growled.

Edward grinned. "Or else?"

"Or else, if Bella ever lets me access my powers again, I'm going to kill you."

**Next chapter will pretty much all take place in Building 26, and there'll be action and character death…some of which may surprise you. **


	24. No Way Out

**Rereading the last chapter to get inspired for this one, I realized I forgot to write that deleted Sylar/Bella scene, so here it is now as a special present for Nikel's lover, who had requested it.**

"…I'm all you've got now. Get used to it."

Even knowing it would cause him to hurt me, I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to block out his words. I would _not_ imagine what Arthur might do to Peter…

Sylar's fingers tightened in my hair, his short nails scraping my scalp. "Look at me. If it'll make you stop whining, I'll even give you what you want." His skin shivered strangely and changed; instead of Sylar, I was suddenly looking at…Peter? Or a copy of him anyway. "Is this better for you?" he asked mockingly.

I shook my head a fraction of an inch to either side. My vision was blurring with tears, but not tears caused by the physical pain of my hair being pulled. "No, this…this is worse. Peter would never be this cruel. You may be a shapeshifter now - after you killed somebody - but making yourself _look_ like a different person doesn't make you _like_ them. You can't give me anything that I want."

**And from there the ending of ch22 goes on just like it did in the original version when Edward shows up to save her. Now on to ch24. Standard fight-scene warnings apply. **

Chapter 24: No Way Out

_BPOV_

"There it is." Sylar pointed across the deserted highway. On the other side were eighty acres of government-owned land enclosed by a fence topped with razor wire. In the middle of the otherwise empty lot sat a massive, austerely utilitarian building. "They call it Building 26."

"The place is a fortress," Claire snapped. "How are we supposed to get inside?"

Sylar shrugged. "Not my problem. The deal was for me to get you here, and I have. So, Bella, are you going to unblock my powers or not?"

"Our deal's that you help me save Peter," I coolly reminded him. "You get nothing until he's back with me."

"And if your boyfriend's already dead?"

"Then that's just too bad for you, isn't it? Because if Peter's dead, I doubt Bella will be in a mood to do you any favors, will you, Bella?"

"I don't know what kind of mood I'd be in if Peter died. I haven't let myself think about it." That wasn't completely true; any time I let my guard down the thought was there, waiting to ambush me: _What if I was too late? What if I couldn't help Peter? What would I do without him?_ I still didn't have an answer to that, so I had almost convinced myself that Arthur would have wanted him alive, if only so he could try to take his powers.

Edward and Alice had been very helpful - like me, they couldn't sleep, so they kept me company, kept me distracted enough that I couldn't brood constantly over my missing boyfriend - and Claire's healing had helped me shake off the worst effects of my exhaustion. Still, I knew I couldn't go on like this forever. One way or another, I needed this to end today.

Suddenly, Elle grabbed my arm. "Where do you think you're going?" I had unconsciously stepped out into the road. "You can't just walk in there! That building's probably crawling with security!"

Edward nodded. "There must be over a hundred people in there - I can hear the mental racket from here."

"Okay, okay." I moved back to what my companions considered a safe distance and pried Elle's fingers off. "I won't go charging in, but we don't have all the time in the world here."

"There are security cameras sweeping the perimeter, but I think I've found a blind spot," Alice offered. "In ten minutes we'll be able to slip in. Once we're inside the fence, if everyone can stay behind me I'll be able to get us to a door without the cameras picking us up."

"Are there guys with guns on the other side?" Claire asked.

"There are five people who'll be close enough to hear when we break in; we can handle them easily."

We crossed the road, and Alice ripped a hole in the chain-link fence. We moved in single file behind her - first Claire, then me and Sylar, with Elle and Edward bringing up the rear. When we reached the door - a heavy steel thing not designed to be opened from the outside - Edward joined Alice at the front of the group. They tore the door off its hinges and went inside; Alice paused for a single second to motion for the rest of us to stay back. I heard a single gunshot, then nothing for a short moment until Alice called, "Okay, the coast is clear."

The room we entered was some kind of storage closet for weapons; the walls were lined with racks holding enough guns and ammunition to supply a whole army. Four men lay unconscious on the floor, and Edward had the fifth pinned on a bench where he and his friends had apparently been cleaning their weapons.

"One of these guys managed to fire at you?" Sylar asked, eyebrows raised and a slight disparaging note in his voice. "Thought you'd be too fast for them."

"He didn't fire _at_ us." Alice sounded annoyed at the suggestion. "He'd just finished reloading when we broke in and it went off. Just a lucky accident."

"Well you," Elle announced to Edward's captive, "are going to have a very _un_lucky accident if you don't tell us where you keep your prisoners in this building right. Now."

"Screw you, bitch."

Seeing that Elle was about to try her favorite persuasion tactic on him, I spoke up. "Wait! We're looking for maximum security - somewhere Arthur would keep his most dangerous prisoner of all."

"I'm not telling you freaks anything!"

Elle raised her hand, which crackled with electricity. "Wanna bet?" But before she could begin her interrogation Edward squeezed the man's neck, cutting off his air just long enough to make him pass out. Elle looked furious. "What'd you do that for? I can't question him if he's unconscious!"

"You don't need to; I read the information we need in his thoughts."

"Well that's just great. I can tell I'll never get to have any fun with you around!"

I intervened before Edward could reply. "We aren't here to have fun, Elle; we're here for Peter. Edward, I need you to take me to wherever Arthur put him, _now_."

"Wait a minute!" Claire piped up. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at Sylar, who was lifting a gun from one of the unconscious men.

"We're going to meet more armed soldiers before we get out of this place. That won't be a problem for anyone else since bullets can't penetrate vampire skin and you'll heal Bella and Elle if they get hurt, but I bet you'd let me bleed to death." Sylar explained this with exaggerated slowness, as if he thought Claire was very dim. "Is this really the time for you to revert to your ditzy cheerleader persona?"

"Watch it," she muttered darkly as we filed out of the storage room, "or I might just shoot you myself."

###

We ran into a few other people as we moved through Building 26, but never in a large group, and Edward and Alice took care of them so fast that they never even slowed us down. "There's something wrong here," Elle said after the sixth encounter of this kind.

"You're just mad that the vampires are handling everything faster than you could."

"The cheerleader's right," Sylar agreed, earning a nasty look from Claire. "But I'm sure you'll manage to find some trouble soon enough."

"I'm not looking for trouble," Elle retorted. "I just think it's odd that no alarms went off when we broke in. None of the people we've met even knew there were intruders in the building."

"Maybe there's a glitch in the security system," Alice suggested.

I nodded absently; I didn't care why we weren't being ambushed, I was just thankful.

Edward led us to double doors made of thick metal. There was a keypad mounted on the wall beside the doors; opening them obviously required an access code. "That man whose mind I read knew that the highest-security cell in the building is behind those doors, but he didn't know the code to open them."

Claire shrugged. "So break 'em."

Edward looked at me. "If I do that, someone is bound to hear it. Are you okay with that?"

I gave a single sharp nod, my throat suddenly tight. I was sure that these doors were the only thing standing between me and Peter, and I would tear them down myself if I could; it didn't matter who heard.

Edward worked at the hair-thin crack where the two doors met until it opened wide enough for him to get his fingers inside, then shoved the doors apart with a loud crunch of metal against metal, which was almost immediately drowned out when an alarm began blaring shrilly from what sounded like a thousand speakers. Claire, Elle, Sylar, and I clapped our hands over our ears; the assault on their sensitive hearing even seemed to bother the two vampires a little.

"Guess the security system isn't down after all," Elle shouted over the earsplitting racket.

"Let's go!" The doors opened onto an eight-foot-long narrow hallway with a single door at the end. That had to be the cell we were looking for. I ran down the hall, not waiting for the others, slipped on the slick, highly polished floor, and crashed into the door.

Alice caught me before I hit the ground. "The others are trying to find a way to shut the alarm off, but someone will have heard it already, so Edward decided to close the doors and lock them out. They're broken, though, and won't close fully anymore. Whoever comes, we won't be able to hold them off forever."

"That's okay, just get this door open!"

The door was at least six inches thick, and couldn't be opened except by another code we didn't have. Alice was able to break it, but it actually took her a little time and several blows before her tiny fist punched through the reinforced steel. Once the first tear had been made, it only took her a second to enlarge it into a hole big enough for us to enter the cell.

I darted inside…and stopped cold. The barely conscious figure crumpled on the floor wasn't Peter. Judging by his buzzed hair and military camouflage suit, he probably worked here. I crouched down at his side and slapped his face to bring him around. "Where is Peter Petrelli?"

The man blinked. "He was here," he said slowly. "I was in charge of administering the drug that suppressed his powers, but when I brought it this time he said the injection site had gotten infected and he'd need something for the pain before he could give himself another shot-"

"You bastard. You made him do that to _himself_?"

"He's dangerous. I was worried about what he might do if I got too close, so I just kept my distance and held my gun on him in case he tried anything. But this time he really seemed sick, so I let my guard down… Next thing I knew he stabbed me with the needle, took my gun, and knocked me out. He knocked me out with my own gun!" The soldier seemed perplexed by this.

Claire had joined us in the cell while he was talking and now stood over us, hands on her hips, scowling down at him. "Where'd Peter go? Where is he now?"

Slowly raising himself up on one elbow, he shook his head. "Don't know. I was out cold."

With a growl of frustration, Claire kicked his elbow out from under him. He fell hard, hit his head on the floor, and passed out again.

"Claire!"

"What?"

"You probably just gave that guy a concussion!"

"Didn't you see the way he seemed confused by everything, and he was all slow and clumsy? He already had one." She extended a hand to help me up.

I took it and let her pull me to my feet. "And you made it worse."

"At least he's still alive," she pointed out. "If I let him get up he'd probably just get shot when the guys responding to that alarm get in here."

"Don't worry about that; Edward and I will deal with them." Alice flitted out of the cell, pausing just long enough to tell Claire, "Stay here, and keep Bella safe."

"What kind of plan-?" I broke off as noise erupted from the other end of the narrow passageway: shouting, gunfire, and a crash of metal on metal that shook the ground under us. We traded alarmed glances and then ran back into the hallway, Alice's order to stay where we were forgotten.

Claire was faster than me, so by the time I arrived on the scene she was already in the middle of it. At least fifty men, maybe more, had heard the alarm go off and dropped whatever they were doing to check it out. Alice and Edward _were_ dealing with them, but they were seriously outnumbered. _Elle's managing to have some 'fun' after all, _I noted as she electrocuted two men, sending them to the ground with ugly red burns already appearing on their skin. _Well, that should make her happy. _ Claire was quickly and efficiently twisting guns out of the hands of anyone she could reach, and had even broken a few wrists by the looks of it, while Sylar hung back, defending himself when necessary but never taking a more active role in the fight than he had to. This didn't surprise me - I'd never expected him to fight for us.

Someone finally noticed I was there and shot at me, forcing me to shield myself…but the bullets froze in midair before they hit my shield. Everything and everyone else froze too; even the air grew unnaturally still. I had just been caught in a time-stop. But which side was the person who had initiated it on? Stepping as quietly as possible, I wove through the cluster of frozen human figures, searching for anyone else still moving. Unfortunately, there were so many people in my way that it wasn't long before I bumped into someone. It wasn't a noisy collision - my sharp intake of breath and the scuffling of my shoes as I scrambled to regain my balance was barely audible - but in the deep silence it was deafening.

"Who's there? Come on out - I'm not gonna hurt you."

That voice sent an electric jolt of recognition sizzling across my nerve endings; then I ran forward, shoving immobile soldiers out of my way. Peter's eyes widened when he saw me. "Bella…?" he whispered before I flung myself into his arms, muffling his mouth with mine. He let me kiss him, but pushed me away long before I was ready and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"I came for you, of course."

"It isn't safe for you here-"

"I don't care - I had to find you. You'd do the same for me."

Peter sighed. "How'd you even find this place?"

"Sylar led us here - me, Claire, Elle, Edward, and Alice."

"You'll have to tell me how you got him to do that, but not now. C'mon."

"I'll tell you everything," I promised as I hurried after him, "if you tell me why you didn't come find me once you got out of your cell." I couldn't keep a slight hurt note out of my voice.

"I wanted to, but I wasn't the only one trapped here. I was going to get them out until I heard the alarm go off; thought I'd better check it out."

"Why didn't you take out the building's security system?"

"I thought someone might notice if I did that, and it wasn't like I was gonna set off any alarms if I just phased through the doors instead of opening them. I did set the cameras to play a loop of the last thirty minutes recorded before I left my cell so Arthur wouldn't realize I got out."

I stopped so suddenly I lost my balance and almost fell, forcing Peter to turn around and catch me. "Arthur? He's here?"

"Well I haven't seen him lately, but I highly doubt he's left. Where else would he go?" He stopped and opened a door marked 'Detention Area'. "This is where he put everyone. They're all in some kind of medically induced coma."

"My God," I breathed as I took in the rows of gurneys and the dead-looking figures strapped to them. "There's Mohinder Suresh…Hiro Nakamura…Tracy Strauss and… Is that _Nathan_?"

"I had to have some way to stop Angela from making trouble for me," said the voice that had haunted my nightmares for months. Arthur Petrelli stepped out of a shadowy corner and strolled toward us, smiling. "Surprised to see me, Peter? Come on… You didn't really expect your juvenile tricks to stop me? You've learned to stop time, how clever. But I've still got decades of experience on you, and more power than you can imagine. I could have trained you, made you stronger, but you didn't want my help…"

While he talked, I tried to feel out the mental mechanisms controlling his powers and switch them off, but he sensed what I was doing and retaliated with a telepathic attack that hit me like a physical blow and almost broke the shield protecting my mind. I cried out in pain and fell to my knees, clutching my head.

Peter pulled out a gun he'd tucked into his belt and pointed it at his father. "Leave her alone!"

"Put that down, boy," Arthur scoffed. "We both know you don't have the guts to use it." He telekinetically twisted Peter's wrist, causing him to release his grip on the weapon, and sent it flying. Peter sent a jet of blue fire at him; he turned it aside. "Don't you get it, Peter? You can't fight me! Stop this before I'm forced to hurt you."

I saw Peter fire electricity at him but didn't watch any more; it was obvious that they were too evenly matched, except that as Arthur had pointed out, he _was_ more experienced. I had to help Peter. When Arthur took the gun from him, it had flown off in my direction; I crawled over and picked it up, unnoticed by either of the Petrellis - they were too focused on each other to pay attention to me.

I looked back at them just in time to see Peter turn invisible, and a second later a bolt of lightning sliced through the air from a spot several yards away from where I'd last seen him. Arthur barely moved out of the way in time, and one sleeve of his jacket was left singed and smoking. His burnt skin healed instantly, but the damage to his expensive suit actually seemed to upset him. "What's the matter, Peter, can't you fight me face to face?" he called out angrily. "I'm not surprised - you're pathetic, and you always were. That's why you need that weak little slut to hero-worship you-"

Peter reappeared, his hands and eyes glowing red; Arthur seemed to have angered him enough to trigger his radioactive power. "Shut _up_ about Bella!"

This time Arthur wasn't fast enough to avoid the nuclear blast aimed at him. Every inch of his skin was turned into a raw, blistered, steaming mess, but he started healing instantly. _No!_ I couldn't let that happen. I had seen it too many times before - he caused horrible damage to everything and everyone around him and walked away completely unharmed, and he always came back, ready to hurt someone else…even his own son. He was heartless, a monster, and it was time he _paid_. I strode forward, ignoring the nauseating stench of burning flesh, and shot him in the stomach. "Don't you dare insult Peter, you son of a bitch. You're the one who's pathetic, and I am _done_ being afraid of you!"

His abdominal muscles flexed convulsively, forcing the bullet out with a little help from his telekinesis. The wound closed, so I shot him again, in the kneecap this time. "You've kidnapped me-" another shot in his other knee "-locked me up, experimented on me like I was some lab animal…you murdered my father-" two more bullets went in his groin; I felt a detached sense of satisfaction listening to him scream as the tiny lead projectiles chewed up his genitals "-hunted me… You've made my life a living _hell_ since the end of last summer, and _I have had it!_"

He coughed out a last derisive laugh, spraying blood from his mouth. "You think it'll end if you kill me? There'll always be someone else… As long as the formula and the catalyst exist…someone will come for it…and finish my work. You've won…nothing."

Those words penetrated the red haze of rage that filled my mind, and my hand started to shake. What was I doing? I had just shot a man repeatedly - tortured him - and enjoyed it. "Oh my God, I killed him!"

"No you didn't." Peter pulled the gun out of my limp fingers, pressed the barrel against Arthur's forehead, and fired. At point-blank range it shattered the top half of his head, splattering brain and skull fragments everywhere. "_Now_ he's dead. We'll burn the body just to make sure." Dropping the gun, Peter crossed the few feet separating us and put his hand under my chin, gently raising my head so he could look into my eyes. "He won't come back this time, I promise. He'll never hurt you again. He's gone."

**Only a couple chapters left now. **


	25. Bella's Choice

**Here we are at the penultimate chapter, finally! After the last one this one is pretty light on the action; it's more about tying up the loose ends that are still lying around so I can bring the story to a satisfying conclusion. It also includes some implied future Syelle, which is not my ship, so I blame Silver-eyed Queen for it ending up in here. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it. **

Chapter 25: Bella's Choice

_BPOV_

I nodded shakily and, feeling that my knees were about to buckle, sat down. Peter tried to examine me, but I shrugged off his concern. "There's nothing medically wrong with me; I just need a minute. Go wake all the prisoners up." As he moved away from me, my eyes, ignoring my brain's protests that I was being morbid, returned to what was left of Arthur's face. Everything above his nose was gone, but the lower half of his face was intact. Even in death he still seemed to be wearing his self-satisfied, superior smile.

Seeing it stirred up something of the anger I had felt while shooting him, and I decided I didn't feel guilty at all. He deserved it, and the world was a safer place with him gone. My only regret was that I'd faltered before putting the final bullet in his head so that Peter had to do it instead. It had to have been hard for him, but he'd done it…because I couldn't, even though I should have been the one to finish Arthur. I should have done it for him.

"Bella?"

I jumped and quickly tore my eyes away from the body, feeling like I'd been caught doing something I shouldn't. "What?"

"I've shut off all the prisoners' sedative feeds, but once I unfreeze time it'll take a while for the drugs to clear their systems, and I was hoping to get Matt Parkman to help me compel the people working here to stop fighting; I don't want anyone hurt if they don't have to be. We could also use Hiro's help to get the prisoners home once they're awake. We need Claire - they'll recover faster with a little help from her."

We went back to where our friends - and Sylar - were frozen in combat with the defenders of Building 26, and I covered Claire with my shield, allowing her to move in the time-stop. She lurched forward thanks to delayed momentum; I stepped aside just in time to avoid a collision. "Bella? What's happening?"

"I found Peter - actually, he found me…" I let the words trail off as Claire stopped listening to me in favor of running off to hug her uncle.

"You don't know how good it is to see you!"

"You too."

Claire suddenly pulled back, frowning. "Hey…if you were able to escape on your own, and your powers are obviously working since you've stopped time, why are you still here? You could've located us and met up with us before we got here, couldn't you?"

"No, I couldn't. I was only able to get out…I don't know, it must've been right before you showed up, and there's stuff I had to take care of here before I could leave. I'd planned on doing it by myself because I didn't want to drag any of you into this hellhole, but since you're already here you can help."

"Just tell me what you need me to do."

"Come with me." Peter led Claire and me back to the prisoners' room. Walking there seemed to take a long time - Building 26 was a fairly big place - but since time was frozen around us, it actually took no time at all. I tried not to think about that too much; the rules of bending the space-time continuum always gave me a headache. "Okay, Bella, I need you to bring Matt out of the time-stop, and Claire, I need you to purge the effects of some drugs from his body."

Once Matt was awake, he and Peter left to give Elle, Edward, Alice, and Sylar a hand. Claire and I were advised to stay where we were and try to help the people who would begin recovering from whatever drugs Arthur had given them once the normal flow of time restarted.

"What d'you think, Bella? Should we stay here, or go with Peter and Matt and kick some more ass?"

"I think we can do more good here. Besides, I've already done enough ass-kicking for one day. The others can manage without us."

As if to prove my point, the distant sounds of the fight we'd left behind resumed briefly, then stopped as Peter's and Matt's telepathic commands took effect.

"Yeah, you're right." Claire looked around for another way to make herself useful, and her gaze landed on Nathan. She made a beeline for him, but paused when she stepped in a slowly-spreading pool of blood. "Is that-?"

"Yes."

She traced the blood to its source, and her jaw dropped when she saw what was left of Arthur Petrelli. "Is that really-?"

"It's him."

"And he's really dead? For good this time?"

"I really, _really_ hope so."

"Well, good riddance."

To my relief, she never asked who the killer was.

###

We returned home, but things didn't go back to normal - if you could call our lives since Arthur had chased us out of Forks 'normal'. Building 26 had been shut down, and the whole country was awash in news reports of a top-secret anti-terrorism unit that had gone rogue and taken ordinary citizens prisoner in violation of their Constitutional rights. There were also rumors of unethical scientific experimentation on unwilling human subjects, but nothing that could be substantiated. With Arthur gone, Danko had been arrested and charged as the leader of the rogue unit, but had been declared mentally incompetent to stand trial after trying to tell investigators that the 'ordinary citizens' he'd captured were actually carriers of a dangerous genetic mutation that gave them superhuman abilities.

"Can you believe that psycho's only been sentenced to an institution for criminally insane people?" Elle exclaimed, turning the TV off in disgust after the five o'clock news ended.

"He'll be out as soon as he stops talking about evolved humans and they decide he's 'cured'," Edward remarked.

"How do you know that?" Claire asked.

"I spent some time in one of those institutions-"

"I'm surprised they ever let you out."

Alice and Elle laughed. Edward just looked annoyed. "I wasn't an inmate. I was working there, using my talent to gain some insight into the criminal mind."

"Relax, I was only teasing. Can't you take a joke?"

"Of course he can," Alice assured her. "It's good for him. You know, I should introduce you to Emmett sometime…"

Edward groaned. Meanwhile, I was still glaring at the television. Peter gave my hand a gentle, comforting squeeze. "Hey, don't worry about Danko. I'm sure he'll be locked up for a long time."

"That's not what's bugging me; it's that Nathan took credit for exposing him. They're calling him a national hero!"

"Yeah, I know. So what?"

"So he didn't do anything! It was all you!" Edward, Alice, Claire, and Elle all went silent at my angry outburst. "It's not right that he's getting all the recognition for what you did," I continued, ignoring them.

"She has a point," Elle agreed.

Peter sighed. "Guys, really, I'm okay with it. Nathan always had to be the center of attention when we were kids, and he hasn't changed much. I used to resent the hell out of him, but it doesn't matter anymore." He looked back at me. "The important thing is that you and Claire are safe. I don't care who gets the credit."

"Well, if you're okay with it, I guess I am too." I leaned my head on his shoulder.

Edward cleared his throat loudly. He had become a little more accepting of my relationship with Peter - at least he'd accepted that there was nothing he could do about it - but he still didn't like seeing us together. "Bella, Alice and I are leaving soon."

"Okay." Even though the two Cullens had decided to stay in town with us for a while, they never stayed in our house overnight.

"No, he means we're going home, back to our family," Alice said. "And Gabriel is going with us."

"Oh, good. That he's leaving town, I mean; you two, I'll miss." Sylar - or Gabriel, as he now called himself - never set foot in the house, and Claire had threatened him with very unpleasant consequences if he harassed me about unblocking his powers, but knowing he was still around made me uneasy nonetheless. Even if he was relatively harmless now, I still didn't trust him.

"He hopes we can help him learn to curb his predatory impulses, since they're somewhat similar to ours," Edward explained. "I've spoken with Carlisle and he's willing to help, although he's never dealt with a case quite like Gabriel's before."

"And you really think you can reform _Sylar_?" Claire scoffed.

"If anyone can it'll be Carlisle," Alice said confidently.

"Well, good luck with that."

"Yeah, good luck - all of you." Peter sounded a lot less sarcastic than his niece.

"There's one more thing," Elle spoke up hesitantly. "Gabriel…asked me to go with him." Her gray eyes were fixed almost questioningly on me.

"Are you asking my permission?"

"It's not that I wanna get away from you or anything," she explained in a rush, "but he said if he gets better he'd like to give us being together another try, and I figured now that Arthur's dead you don't need me for protection anymore-"

I held my hand up. "Elle, stop; it's okay. Protecting me isn't your job. If you want to be with Sy- Gabriel, then that's your choice. What I think about it doesn't matter."

"It does to her," Peter told me. "You're the first friend she ever had; she wants your approval."

I got up, pulled Elle out of her armchair, and gave her a reassuring hug. "I'll always be your friend - and as a friend, I want you to be happy. If you think Gabriel is what you want, then you should go for it."

When we broke apart, Elle's eyes were shiny and a little damp. She swiped at them, muttering about dust and allergies she didn't have. "Thanks, Bella. So…what're you gonna do without me?"

"I'm still working on that." Before I could think of what I was going to do with or without Elle, there was a problem I had to solve, but I thought I was close to doing so. In fact, if all went well it would be taken care of tonight.

###

I waited till I was sure Peter was asleep, then disentangled myself from him and slid out of our bed. I didn't think what I was about to do was dangerous, but it _might_ be - and the potential risk was just enough that if he knew what I was up to, he might argue with me over the necessity of it. Maybe even talk me out of it. And I couldn't let that happen. This was something that needed to be done, not just for my peace of mind, but to prevent a lot more trouble for us in the future. In the morning I would explain everything, and Peter would understand - or so I kept telling myself as I made my way to Claire's room. I could see light from her computer screen under the door; she was still awake.

"Bella!" she hissed when I entered quietly, without knocking. "You shouldn't sneak in on me like that! I know Danko's been arrested and all, but still, there was a minute before I really processed that it was only you when I almost reached for my taser."

"Sorry. Why are you on the computer this late?"

"I was looking into what I'd have to do to change my name back to Bennet - I mean, there's no reason we have to use fake identities anymore. Nobody's after us." I _hmm_ed in agreement. "What about you? Do you want to be Bella Swan again?"

I shrugged. "Don't know; anyway, that's not what I'm here for. I've been thinking about something Arthur said right before he died-"

"Then stop," Claire said immediately. "Nothing that bastard said is worth you losing sleep over."

"He said that as long as the formula and the catalyst exist, someone else will try to finish what he started."

"He just wanted to scare you. He couldn't stand that he was gonna die and you would move on with your life, so he said one last thing to torture you."

"Still, I don't want to risk it. Claire, I think we should destroy the catalyst."

"We can't. …Can we?"

"I think I know a way. And I want to do it now, tonight."

Her eyes widened. "Now? Right now?"

"Yes, right now." I cut off her incoherent attempts at finding words with a simple question: "Do you trust me?"

Claire swallowed hard, but instantly answered, "I trust you."

"Good." I sat down on her bed, facing her with my legs crossed and took both her hands, as if we were about to meditate. "I'm not sure this will work, or if it'll hurt or anything…"

"I trust you," she repeated. "And I never liked that the Company decided to use me as a host for this thing before I was even old enough to _know_ I was being used. If you can get rid of it, I want you to."

I took a deep breath. "Okay, you remember how we released the catalyst when we used the formula to save Mohinder Suresh? We're going to do that again."

Once the catalyst had been expelled from our bodies I slammed my mental barriers into place, preventing it from getting back in. With nowhere to go, the catalyst soon dissipated into the air. An almost overpowering feeling of relief washed over me, like a tangible weight had been lifted. Now no one else would ever be able to finish Arthur's work. I would never be hunted again.

###

Over the next week, we discovered the consequences of destroying the catalyst. Without it in our blood, binding us together, Claire and I lost our weird ability to track each other over long distances. Instead, we were left with a strange relic of the bond the catalyst had created between us, which, in addition to bringing us back together when we were separated, had also enabled us to share our powers with each other. Now the catalyst was gone, but a little of Claire's power had stayed in me, and vice versa.

Claire had acquired her own mental shield - not one strong enough to be stretched out to cover anyone else, and not one she could turn into a solid force field, but it would keep her mind protected - and while I would never be able to heal anyone else through touch, or even by giving them my blood, I now recovered instantly from the numerous minor injuries my own clumsiness inflicted on me on an almost daily basis. Needless to say, I thought I'd gotten the best end of the deal.

It wasn't until Peter and I paid a visit to Mohinder that I learned I'd ended up with a lot more than I'd bargained for. When the geneticist heard about my new secondary ability he declared it 'fascinating' and asked if he could examine me to see if my DNA had been altered in any significant way.

I grimaced - his examination would probably include needles - and opened my mouth to refuse when Peter said, "I think that'd be a good idea."

I clamped my mouth shut and glared. "You know how I feel about doctors," I half-hissed, half-whined. "Especially ones that like needles as much as he does." I jerked my head at Mohinder, who was even now preparing an ominously large syringe.

"I do, but I really think you should let him look at you." There was a strange edge in Peter's voice - not exactly worry, but there was definitely something on his mind, and he wasn't telling me what. I sighed and scuffed the heel of my shoe against the cabinet I was leaning on. He had known I was worried about the possibility of someone picking up work on the formula where Arthur left off, but I hadn't told him I had started thinking of how to destroy the catalyst to ensure that never happened the night after we shut down Building 26, so he was entitled to keep me in the dark for a while. If there was anything I really needed to know, he would tell me.

After drawing what seemed an absurdly large quantity of my blood, Mohinder asked for a sample of my skin cells and handed me an oversized Q-tip, which I used to swab the inside of my cheek. Whatever new test he needed my skin cells for, at least it was non-invasive. "Is that it?"

"Yes, I believe so."

I hurried out of the lab before he could think of something else to do to me; Peter stayed behind, so I decided to wait outside for him and enjoy the bright Indian sunshine. I hadn't put on sunscreen but that was okay - according to Claire I was now impervious to damage from ultraviolet rays. I closed my eyes and tipped my head up to the sun, wondering idly if my new regenerative powers would also prevent me from tanning. _Probably,_ I decided. _I've never managed it before, so I won't now, for sure._

It was even hotter here than it had been in Phoenix. _I wonder if Peter would like to go there sometime…_ I still missed Arizona occasionally. I missed Forks too, but I doubted I would want to go back for a long time.

"What are you thinking about?"

Pushing back the wave of sadness that had washed over me, I answered, "Nothing important. What were you and Mohinder talking about?"

"I had him run some tests on the cells he took from you; I wanted to know the full extent of your new ability, and now…we need to talk."

I opened my eyes fully and turned to look at Peter. He looked…not troubled, exactly, but not happy either. "Is something wrong?"

"You'll have to decide that after you hear what I have to say. There's a side effect of Claire's ability that I don't think you're aware of." He paused. I said nothing, waiting for him to continue, and after a moment he did. "You know Claire and I - and now you - can't die, right?"

"I know you and Claire can't. I haven't died lately, but I guess it's logical to assume that I could come back now since I basically copied Claire's ability, like you. So what? Not dying is a good thing, right?"

"I'm glad you feel that way, because I had Mohinder observe your cells under a microscope, and in just the few days that you've had this ability they've already established a constant rate of regeneration."

"Constant?" My eyebrows lifted slightly. "Why? I don't have any injuries that need healing right now. I think I remember something from high school biology about how our cells experience wear and tear every day, but that's just the normal aging process."

"Exactly - and this ability stops it," he said bluntly.

I gave a little laugh. "That's bull…isn't it?" He had to be joking, surely…but his expression wasn't the least bit humorous.

"Remember when I told you about Adam Monroe?"

The name stirred something in my memory. "He tried to release the Shanti virus, didn't he? And he was immortal."

"And?" Peter prompted.

"And he could heal, like Claire," I finished quietly. I hadn't dwelled on that part when I first heard the story of Adam, because if his power was the same as Claire's - and therefore Peter's, too - and it had allowed him to survive for centuries without aging, then that would mean I had somehow found another guy who would outlive me, who I would one day be too old for, even if at the time it was the other way around. I refused to believe my luck could be that rotten, but apparently it was; or maybe not. "So, just to be absolutely clear," I said cautiously, "you and Claire aren't aging, and now neither am I?" Peter nodded. "Well that's okay then."

"If you don't mind being a teenager forever."

"I don't." He looked unconvinced. "No, really," I insisted. "I used to want to be immortal after all; living forever as a clumsy human wasn't quite what I had in mind, but since meeting you I've decided being human isn't so bad."

His expression brightened a little. "Really?"

"Yes, really. Honestly, I don't know why you were worried about my reaction. Now, unless you have any more life-altering news for me, can we get some lunch here before we teleport home?"

"Sure, we can get lunch - but how set are you on teleporting?"

"Why? You're not suggesting we travel like normal people, are you?" I gasped in mock horror.

Peter laughed. "No; I feel like flying."

Flying. It had been a while since we'd done that. I couldn't deny that the last time had been a little unnerving; he'd probably taken me as high as the cruising altitude of the average airplane, but of course there was no plane, just one man stopping me from plummeting to my death. As long as it was _this_ man, though… "All right, Peter. Whatever you want."

**There will be an epilogue after this so we can all get a last fix of Peter/Bella romance, and then that will be it for this story. **


	26. Epilogue: An Unexpected Proposal

**Warning: I pretty much devoted the conclusion of this story to giving Bella and Peter the happy ending they deserve after everything I've put them through, so there are lots of romantic scenes and, you know, all that that entails. Still nowhere near as graphic as the fight scenes though, so if those didn't bother you this definitely shouldn't. **

**I'd also like to thank everyone who's read and reviewed this story; some of you have given me ideas for how it should go, and all of you have kept me interested in writing. This series wouldn't have gone on as long as it did without all of you. **

Epilogue: An Unexpected Proposal

_BPOV_

Peter and I went home, but things weren't the same - Elle was gone, Claire had taken back her old identity and was readjusting to life as Claire Bennet, and I wished I could do the same, but I couldn't. Bella Swan was legally dead; trying to be her again would be very complicated.

"But you're not the first person to be mistakenly declared dead," Peter pointed out when I explained this to him one morning. "There's gotta be another reason you aren't sure if you want to go back to being who you were. What is it?"

"I guess the real problem is that I can't just go back and pretend the last few months never happened; Charlie will still be dead." A choked little sob escaped me. "And…what would I tell Renee? What could I say to her to make her understand why I let her believe I died too?"

"The truth," he suggested. "But only if you want to."

"I- I don't-"

"Come here." He reached out for me; I moved closer, and he took my hand and teleported to the street outside Renee's and Phil's house. I frowned up at him, wordlessly asking why he'd brought me here when I'd just said I _wasn't_ ready to face my mother. I didn't even know if I ever would be. "Relax, we're invisible. I just want you to take a good look and tell me if you want to go in there to her."

I did as he asked and looked. Renee and Phil were cleaning up their breakfast dishes, talking and laughing. It was a happy, comfortingly normal scene, and I found myself unwilling to disrupt it with all my weirdness and the mess that my life had become since Arthur Petrelli entered it. My mother wasn't the kind of person who would handle it well. "No," I whispered, "I can't go in. I want to - God, you can't imagine how much I want to - but she's over losing me and she's _happy_. I won't mess that up. Please, let's just go."

We teleported, but not back to our house in Hanover. Instead Peter took us to some beach. I didn't know where we were, but it didn't look exotic, nor did there seem to be any drastic difference in time zones; I guessed we were still somewhere in America. "After everything you've been through, I thought you could use a vacation."

"Here? Where are we anyway?"

"The Hamptons. But if you don't like it, we can go anywhere you want."

"We?"

"Unless you want a break from me along with everything else." Peter tried to sound like he was only joking, but I knew he still blamed himself to some degree for everything his father had put me through. In his mind, it probably wasn't inconceivable that I might need a break from him.

"That will never happen," I said firmly. "If I'm going to live forever, I want you around for every single day of it."

"Then I will be."

I smiled contentedly; even though I didn't really need reassuring that Peter and I would be together forever anymore, I never got tired of hearing him say it.

###

We made a quick stop back at our house to get our clothes and other necessary items and tell Claire we might be gone for a while - she wanted to stay at school and said she'd miss us but understood why I needed some 'R and R time' - and then we went back. I almost couldn't believe how easy it was. All my past vacations had involved saving up money for airfare and car rentals, and days of planning and organization - all of which had been my responsibility since Renee couldn't even organize her own closet.

Traveling with Peter cost nothing in transportation; all we needed was somewhere to stay once we arrived, which was when I found out that the Petrellis had their own beach house in the Hamptons. "Nathan and I used to spend almost every summer here when we were kids, but I haven't been back in years," he told me as he showed me around. "It's a little weird, being here without him and Mom and-" He abruptly cut himself off. I made a show of studying the grain of an oak-paneled wall. After a long, tense moment Peter said, "Anyway, my room's upstairs if you'd like to see it."

"Yes," I replied in a carefully neutral tone, "I would."

His room was pretty much like I'd expected it to be, having been in enough of Peter's personal spaces to get an idea of his tastes, except for the rock band posters. "You really haven't been in here since you were in high school, have you?" I snickered.

"No." He frowned slightly. "Want me to take them down?"

"Only if you want to." I sat down on the bed, which was in remarkably good shape for not having been used in years - the mattress had to be pretty old. It was also obviously meant for just one person, but I didn't take up much room. It would be adequate for what I had in mind.

As if sensing the direction my thoughts had taken, Peter commented, "I never brought girls here…until now."

I leaned back, taking my weight on my elbows, and raised an eyebrow challengingly. "And now that you have me here, what're you going to do with me?"

I never actually saw him move, but suddenly he was leaning over me, bracing himself with his hands on either side of my head and one knee between my legs, pushing my thighs apart. "I'll think of something." And then, just as quickly, he was gone. I whimpered in disappointment and sat up, only to see that he was in the process of removing his shirt. "You might want to undress first," he suggested with the merest hint of a mischievous grin, "unless you'd rather I do that for you."

"Tease!" I exclaimed. "You'll be sorry." I jumped up and stripped down to my underwear faster than I ever had in my life, then sauntered over and pressed myself against him. "Kiss me." He did so hesitantly, clearly expecting me to tease him back by pulling away at the last second. I didn't, though; I _would_ get him back, but later, which I could catch him off-guard. "I want to try something new," I said breathlessly when we broke apart.

"What?"

I licked my lips nervously, trying to think how to word my request. "Well…till now we've mostly kept our abilities out of our…lovemaking." I looked away from his curious stare as heat flooded my face and folded my arms over my partially uncovered breasts, wishing I'd said this before taking my clothes off. Being nearly naked just made me feel more exposed and vulnerable. "That's probably for the best, since you could have hurt me…but now I'm a lot more durable, so I was thinking we could change it up a little. You don't have to hold back that part of yourself anymore when you're with me. I don't know if you've had to make an effort to do that…"

He took a moment to consider it. "I don't know. Maybe I have." He kissed me, gently at first; it always started off that way, then became more demanding and forceful. I flicked my tongue against his lower lip, eagerly encouraging him to deepen the kiss. Instead I felt a sharp sting like an electrical shock on my lips. My head jerked back, eyes widening. Of all the things Peter might do to me now that I'd given him free rein, _that_ had never crossed my mind.

"Where did you learn to do that?"

"It was something Elle showed me. I didn't like it, but I thought you might."

The idea that anyone would enjoy being shocked was absurd…and yet, once the initial burning passed, the tingling in my lips was almost pleasant. "Do that again."

Peter pushed me onto the bed, raised my arms over my head, phased my hands through the headboard - and left them there. I tried to pull free, but without him lending me his intangibility the wood was inescapably solid. I was truly stuck, but I didn't mind. I knew I was safe with Peter and he would free me any time I asked, which I had no intention of doing right away. For now, I was content to put myself under his control.

###

"I should be dead to the world," I remarked hours later when we finally took a break. "But I don't even feel very tired."

"Injuries aren't all we're able to recover from quickly."

"You and Claire keep the same hours as people who actually need to sleep, though."

I felt the muscles shift under his skin as he shrugged. "It's a habit. Just because we could stay awake for over forty hours doesn't mean we want to."

Forty hours. Wow. "So we can do this all day without needing to rest?"

"I wouldn't know - haven't tried it."

I lifted my head from his chest. "Well, now you have me to experiment with." He put a hand on my shoulder to flip me underneath him again, but I used my force field to push him back down. We had an unspoken rule that whoever was on top - usually him - was in control; this time I decided it was my turn. "I told you you'd be sorry for teasing me."

###

Four days later, we went out to dinner at a moderately fancy restaurant. In Italy. "Okay, what's the occasion?" I asked suspiciously. "And don't tell me there isn't one - you had me put on a _dress_!"

"I missed your birthday-"

"We all missed my birthday." Peter had been locked up in Building 26 while the rest of us were trying to get there, and the date had slipped past us unnoticed.

"-So I thought I'd make it up to you."

I looked down at my nearly empty plate and fingered the gold satin band at the waist of my dark green dress. "You're too good to me."

"Well, I didn't buy you any presents."

"Thank goodness for that. You've done so much for me already; I don't need presents on top of all that."

A waiter came out, whisked our plates off to the kitchen, and returned five minutes later with our dessert and coffee. Never having had Italian gelato before, I was sufficiently absorbed in savoring it that our conversation died down for a few minutes, during which time I noticed Peter eyeing me speculatively, a thoughtful expression on his face. It looked like he was weighing some important decision - one that I figured prominently in.

Finally my curiosity got the better of me. I put down my spoon and said, "I can tell there's something involving me on your mind. What is it?"

"I've just been thinking about your…identity issues. You decided not to go back to being Bella Swan, but you don't want to keep calling yourself Isabella Morgan, right?"

"That's right."

"So, since you need a new last name-" he hesitated for a split second "-you're welcome to use mine."

I frowned. "But we're together. If I used your last name, wouldn't it look like we were married or something?"

"So marry me." He made it sound like nothing more than a purely practical suggestion, which was the only thing that kept me from falling out of my chair in shock. I had been well acquainted with practicality all my life.

"That's very nice of you to offer-"

"I'm not just being nice, Bella. I actually do want to marry you, and I thought now that Arthur's finally out of the way you might…" His voice trailed off, neither of us saying what we were both thinking: that there was no way I'd have even considered joining his family when it would have made my worst enemy my father-in-law. "Anyway, you don't have to give me an answer right now. Just think about it."

"What if I say no?"

His mouth quirked upward in a half-smile. "Maybe you'll change your mind in fifty years. Or a hundred."

"So, what, you'd keep asking every few decades until I said yes?"

"Unless you honestly don't want me to."

"Huh." That was the first time I realized Peter was capable of being just as stubborn as me. I sipped my coffee in silence while considering his proposal. On the one hand, I had been raised to shudder at the idea of marriage, and if I ever did get married I certainly hadn't planned on doing it at eighteen. _Nineteen,_ I reminded myself. _I'm nineteen now._ Still, nineteen was hardly better than eighteen. On the other hand, there was no one left to criticize me now; my father was dead, _I_ was dead to my mother, and I was sure Claire and Elle wouldn't mind if I married Peter. They'd just be happy for me.

Also, I realized that Charlie's and Renee's marriage had failed not just because they had rushed into it, but because they were fundamentally incompatible, whereas Peter and I were perfect for each other. Most guys would have tried to make some grand romantic gesture when proposing; he knew I wouldn't have liked that. He knew everything about me, and he accepted all of it. And I was already planning on spending eternity with him…

I set my coffee cup down, pushed it and the gelato dish away from me, and leaned forward. "Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"You proposed to me, remember? I thought about it, and my answer is yes."

Peter looked as if he wasn't sure whether to believe me. "Bella, are you sure about this?"

"Well, if saying yes now will spare me centuries of harassment…" He didn't quite glare, but he didn't laugh either. I sobered up instantly. "Yes, I'm sure that I love you, and I'm sure I never want us to be apart. Everything else…I can deal with." I held up a cautioning finger. "But I have conditions."

"Of course you do," he sighed. "What?"

"You will not let your mother force me into some ridiculously overpriced dress and shoes I can't walk in or invite everyone she knows to our wedding." Our wedding - it was unbelievably easy to say the words. That must mean I was making the right choice.

"That'll be easy - we can just go to Vegas, and she won't have anything to do with it."

That sounded very appealing, but I cringed as I imagined Angela's reaction. "She'll be furious."

"I bet she will, but I'll handle her. If she tries to give you a hard time about it you can tell her it was all my idea."

There were no words for how grateful I was for that - I really did_ not_ want to fight with Angela Petrelli over what my wedding was going to be like.

"You okay?"

I smiled to assure Peter that my silence was nothing to worry about. "I'm fine - great, actually. Can you get that waiter back here to bring us the check? I want to get home so we can celebrate."

"What, this place doesn't cut it?"

"Too public." I slid forward so that our knees brushed under the table, letting him know I had a very intimate sort of celebration in mind.

**So there it is. I'm considering this the official end of the series, but if anyone's interested I may post some things that I cut out for the sake of not making it inordinately long as a one- or two-shot. I hope you've enjoyed reading this. **


End file.
